Destination STAR

[Zaros 8]

Hello Dave, First of thanks for this amazing product and the work you are putting into it.

Ive been using this a week or so and i have one question for now, when i import a flight plan and for example choose the recommended sids and stars will the atc still change those last minute if the winds flipped? or do i have to recheck the recommended star after a 10 hour flight?

 

Edit: While posting another question came to mind, when ATC is vectoring me to the runway will it be aware of the surrounding terrain especially flying at night.. shouldn't be a big issue if it didn't but then i can expect to be a little bit more aware of my surroundings 

[Dave-Pilot2ATC 870]

Hi Andy,

Glad you're enjoying the program.

Yes, the final setup for arrival is done as you near the TOD point, so you can be prepared for changes.  IF you don't want the possibility of changes, you can check the "Force Pilot Runway Selection" option and/or not check the ATC Assigns STAR/Approach options, but otherwise, it is subject to change. 

Vectoring does try to avoid terrain.  IF you are exactly on course for the vector, you should be OK, but as always, fly with one eye out the window and on any other situational awareness options you have to be safe.  The controller is on the ground and will not be in the crash if it occurs.

 

Regards,

Dave

[Zaros 8]

Guess ill have to fidle around more to get the TOD more inline with what the FMC calculates since i always try to force a decent otherwise ill end up to high, much to learn

 

Thanks for the info.

[Dave-Pilot2ATC 870]

Remember,

The value shown for TOD Distance in P2A is distance from the TOD to the Destination airport.  Some FMCs show distance from the Aircraft to the TOD. 

The next update of P2A will show both.

 

Dave

[Zaros 8]

Not sure if i understand, for example i imported a flight from EHAM -ESSA with FL370 and GS480 it shows TOD Dlst 11.5NM, changing the flightplan altitute at certain waypoints doesn't change this value at all, also tried to tweak the Dscnt Rate.

Is there a way to tweak this? or does the ATC not use this to let you automaticly decent according to flightplan?

Sorry for all the questions but as an old user of VoxATC it got the TOD pretty much corrent within 15NM.
 

[Dave-Pilot2ATC 870]

From FL 370, it's going to take 150+ NM to get down to Airport elevation.  However, if the first STAR waypoint is something like FL 350, the TOD Distance could be pretty short. 

You tweak the TOD by changing the Descent Rate or GS.  However, this will have little effect if there are altitude constraints in the arrival.

Let me know what your flight plan is and I can get more specific.

 

Thanks,

Dave

[Zaros 8]

Ok that makes more sense, i will test this out during the course of the day to see the outcome  :smile:

[Zaros 8]

After doing some tests flights i must say i'm satisfied for now  :smile: it works best for me to just load the flight plan and let the software handle the rest, i wasn't really aware that it would auto load a star for you if you didn't do it yourself which made it even more realistic for me, the only other thing i came across was that after landing when i was cleared from active and was transfered to ground i requested a taxi to gate three but it kept understanding it as eight three, after the flight i got determined to fix this so i started the grammer help and trained speech recognition with preselected and my own created words/sentences and YES it got the job done.

Really happy and money well spend for me, thx Dave for this amazing step to reality :wink: