Request a STAR

[vitojethro]

A couple of questions about STARs, apologies in advance as they are probably very basic!

What would be the normal process for deciding which STAR to use? I can see a STAR is generated when the flight plan is filed, so presumably the STAR is accurate for that point in time. However if the simulator reverses wind direction en route, will P2ATC update the destination runway and STAR on the fly?

Alternatively if I have an emergency en route and need to change destination to land at a different airport, how would I go about this only using push to talk?

[Dave-Pilot2ATC]

As long as you don't have "Force Pilot Runway Selection" checked and you do have ATC Assigns STAR and ATC Assigns Approach options checked, P2A will check the weather at the destination and recalculate appropriate procedures right before it gives you the call to "Expect the xxxx arrival......"

If you want to divert to a different airport, or just get vectors for any reason, do a request for vectors to an ILS something like "<CallSign> request radar vectors to the ILS for runway 17 at Kilo Oscar Kilo Charlie".  You should then get vectors.  If you're on approach control frequency for the desired airport, you can leave off the airport code in the call.

Dave

[vitojethro]

I have "Force Pilot Runway Selection" checked as I interpreted the manual to mean that this was an optional override available to the pilot as and when needed, this seemed potentially useful so I left this checked. However I shall switch it off as it prevents ATC from making wind related alterations even in a scenario where the pilot never chooses a different runway. I wonder if Pilot2ATC could respect ATC decisions where all 4 options are checked (SID/STAR/APPROACH/FORCE PILOT), except and after the first occasion that a pilot requests a different runway. I have Assign SIDS, STARS & APPROACHES checked as I generally prefer Pilot2ATC to do most of the work for me rather than other flight planning tools.

Thanks, I shall use that call if ever one of my rare random 3jCabin-sounds events happen to fire, I dread the day.