Hey guys, I just wanted to know why sometimes when I get a flightplan from FlightAware or with FSBuild, they sometimes don't have a SID or STAR on a plane like a 744 or 763? So then when it comes time to land at the airport, I have some crazy arrival and I have to run circles around the airport. Very rarely do I have a perfect dep and arr with a sid and star and a normal landing without doing some crazy manuevers to land.Is it normal to not have sids or stars sometimes? If so, then what do you do when you don't have one?

You follow what the departure or approach controller tells you. And yes, there are some airports that don't have one or the other. Sometimes both. If there is no controller present, manuever yourself to the IAF and go from there.

Also, for certain departures from certain airports FlightAware do not list the DP, for example AAL2549 from KJFK to KMCO (http://flightaware.com/live/flight/AAL2549/history/20101219/0030Z/KJFK/KMCO). The route is RBV J230 COPES J75 GSO IRQ J85. The SID has been omitted, but usually its the JFK1 departure from KJFK, with radar vectors to RBV. Several other US airports have similar vectored departures, for example LGA2 departure out of La Guardia or ORLA8 out of Orlando. Whenever you see a waypoint as the first waypoint in the flightplan you should probably check if the departure airport has a vectored DP like JFK1.For short routes its perfectly normal to not have a DP and a STAR, but this is mostly for regional flights that are too short for it to be practical to take a full DP and a STAR.

In real life pilots rarely go 100% origin to destination perfectly following SID/STAR charts like we tend to do in FS. ATC almost always intercedes with vectors or other instructions.And yes, as others pointed out, many airports (Chicago O'Hare being another prime example) do not have any pilot nav SIDs - it's just one departure that's radar vectors to a "gate" fix or VOR that puts the aircraft onto the enroute portion of the flightplan.

Adding to Wim, some big airports will have a departure procedure that has the airports name in it. Such as KBOS=Logan5, KJFK=Kennedy1. These are almost always assigned to an aircraft when not using another departure. These SIDs are also ommited from the flight plan, since it is assumed the pilot will be flying the departure, or another departure that would have been included.

Make sure you download the latest SID/STARS package from planepath and keep your airacs updated through navigraph

And yes, as others pointed out, many airports (Chicago O'Hare being another prime example) do not have any pilot nav SIDs - it's just one departure that's radar vectors to a "gate" fix or VOR that puts the aircraft onto the enroute portion of the flightplan.

Might be a dumb Q but what's the procedure for lost comms then, if you have no prescribed way to go?

Might be a dumb Q but what's the procedure for lost comms then, if you have no prescribed way to go?

In the US at least you follow what's in the AIM 6-4-1:http://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/publications/atpubs/aim/Chap6/aim0604.html