Finding out the active runway

[Guest alex_th2]

How do you know the active runway of your destination airport? Normally in real life aviation the crew is able to print out such information from their ARCAS system and starts planning their approach 2 hours before landing. In FS9 the ATIS can be received only when approaching the airport, which does not give enough time to plan. Any ideas?Thanks.Alex

[KingCat]

You could try the program Real ATIS by SkyTalk Team.Additional info can be found at www.simmarket.comI haven't tried the program myself, but it seems to do what you're looking for.Jon

[Guest FlyMD11.nl]

Hello Alex, We actually don't know the active runway 2 hours before landing. We do have a good guess though. You are quite right about the Acars. We can request the latest ATIS through that. This atis will be 2 hours old though by the time you get to the approach. So it's only useable for preparation, it hardly gives us a guaranteed landing runway. So how do we use this info?In the preparation on the ground (so before departure) you will look into the latest METAR and TAF info. From this you can derive a rough wind direction on the time of approach. We normally program this expected runway in the FMC (on short-haul you normally program the full route in the FMC, on long-haul you do this later). This is the route we're gonna fly. By the time we get close to the airport we get the ATIS. If the ATIS says something different than we expected we'll have to re-program. If you follow a STAR in, you will be having a route that takes you close to the airport before splitting off for every other runway. By the time you have to split off you will know the exact runway. This even is not a guarantee! At schiphol for instance I have had situation that we had to change runways 3 times in 10 minutes with the last change on downwind of the other runway. In Frankfurt you get your runway on downwind all the time. Luckily the STAR is exactly the same for both but the choice between 25R or L is made very late.All in all: Be prepared to change runways very fast. This is one of the only major FMC programming actions you have to do be able to do quick. Get as much info as possible of the weather at destination. In FS use Active Sky for METAR and TAf info, and program the most logical runway. Then see where you actually land.Have fun flying!Remco

[Guest alex_th2]

Many thanks Remco for the detailed answer!Cheers,Alex

[falcon999]

If your using Active Sky, don't forget about 122.0 :-)

[jordanal]

To also add, most AFCADS are setup for the outer-runways declared for landing the inner runways (nearest the terminal(s) used for departure. Both FS-ATC and Radar Contact will try to assign you the runway closest to your approach direction. Go here for U.S. reference: http://flightaware.com/resources/airport/KLAXIf you're arriving from the NE and the general wind is from the west, at KLAX, you'll most likely be assigned 24R; at KATL, you'll most likely get 26R; at EDDF, 25R. At those same airports, arriving from the SW and wind is from the East, at KLAX you'll get 25R; at KATL, 27R; and EDDF, 07R. Does that help? Just remember, "usually" runways closest to the terminals are used for departure. Again, this does depend on the individual AFCAD for an airport but it generally holds true in my experince for the bigger (parellel runway) airports.Also, if the wind is less than 10Kts IAS, FS may ignore it and choose the oposite runway anyway. And, I still get tripped-up when the wind is directly perpendicular to the arriving runways, then, as mentioned in the previous posts, you need to be on your toes...