STAR/APPROACH QUESTION

[Robi77 0]

From what I read regarding this subject I was under the impression thatone only has to enter an apropiate STAR,RUNWAY and TRANSITION ( TRANS )into the MCDU.The route was then ready to be flown.Unfortunately this seems not to be the case unless I do somethong wrong sinceI am a 100 % newbie.An example of an intended flight from Lyon ( France ) to Geneva ( Switzerland )illustrates my "problem".I created a flightplan using FSBuild from Lyon to Geneva,runway 23. Lyon isabout 80 nm west of Geneva.The MCDU then showed the following entries: LFLL ( Lyon )--> 34DME --> D353D -->Virie ---> LSGG ( Geneva )After consulting Navigraph ( see attachement ) I selected STAR rwy 05/23 andthe BELU1S STAR.Then I entered the following into the MCDU :Click Virie which is the last waypoint before Geneva.Click STAR and select BELU1SClick ILS23Click InsertClick TRANS ( SPR is the only option )After I looked at the plan I found this route could not be realisitic andnobody would fly it as is.Therefore some waypoints would have to be deleted in order to get a morerealistic route.But this would then defeat the purpose of the STAR.My question is : What is the answer ?ThanksHerbert Werni

[downscc 1,327]

I suspect the problem is how you match up the STAR route to the approach procedure. Sometimes, the STAR will leave you at a fix that is also a IAF (initial approach fix) for the approach or for the transition to the approach. This doesn't always work out so neatly, and you have to do some route editing. I'm not familiar with this location, but from the charts it looks likethe final fix in the STARs shown is GVA, and you would actually be getting radar vectors from about 10-20 nm before the terminal to intercept an approach. ATC isn't included. Hope this helps.

[NoahBryant 26]

The problem is that it virtually NEVER "realistic" to have flight plan that takes you from runway to runway. Real flights often contain vectors to your final approach (at least into many larger airports) and you never really know what your final runway or STAR is gong to be until you talk to the approach controllers and they tell you, particularly in Europe. If you are not flying with ATC (and by that I mean VATSIM/IVAO) then I wouldn't get hung up on having it "realistic." Just set up your flight plan so that the pilot in command (you) thinks it's safest and most efficient. When you get to VATSIM/IVAO the controllers will assign you the STAR as you near your destination. sometimes they will then give you vectors to the runway and sometimes they dont. It all depends on the situation.