On 1/31/2020 at 7:42 AM, Beardyman said:

So procedures were not programmed into INS, everything done manually - interesting...

Have to challenge myself with L1011 🙂

You have a very good tutorial flight for the captainsim's Tristar with a detailed SID

https://library.avsim.net/search.php?SearchTerm=1011+tutorial&CatID=root&Go=Search

Now I have a question, regarding SIDS and STARS for FSX... how do you even know what approach to use, when you don't even know what runway you will be landing on until 50 of less NMs out?  And how could you possible figure all that out as the pilot wearing all the hats in the cockpit?  I have long wanted to use SIDS and STARS for FS, but never knowing how to even get STARted with it (get that pun, there?)

3 hours ago, beeker46 said:

Now I have a question, regarding SIDS and STARS for FSX... how do you even know what approach to use, when you don't even know what runway you will be landing on until 50 of less NMs out?  And how could you possible figure all that out as the pilot wearing all the hats in the cockpit?  I have long wanted to use SIDS and STARS for FS, but never knowing how to even get STARted with it (get that pun, there?)

Read the waether report then you know the likely one (or 2, or 3...)

It's same IRL, pilot's won't know for sure normally, untill first contact with approach. Even then, it still subject to change. You need to be flex.

When you familiar with an airport, you might get better guess, some airport perfer one direction than another untill the tailwind is near the limit, some prefre to arrange parallel runway one for takeoff and one for landing, some by where the airplane come from, and some might based on where their parking spot might be...

On 2/28/2020 at 12:25 AM, beeker46 said:

Now I have a question, regarding SIDS and STARS for FSX... how do you even know what approach to use, when you don't even know what runway you will be landing on until 50 of less NMs out?  And how could you possible figure all that out as the pilot wearing all the hats in the cockpit?  I have long wanted to use SIDS and STARS for FS, but never knowing how to even get STARted with it (get that pun, there?)

Admittedly, the first time you go to a destination you have never flown into (or out of) you might be unaware of which procedures are common, but the norm for that kind of situation in the real world is not to put two pilots together in the cockpit who are both new to somewhere. So the chances are good that at least one person on the flight deck will be familiar with the most commonly used SIDs and STARs at a particular airport. That cannot always be the case of course, but from a safety standpoint, crew rosters would normally take thisinto account. So don't feel too bad about finding it a bit of a mystery, because everyone will at first, but it will soon demystify itself for you.

In practical terms, even major airports which have very many SIDs and STARs listed for various approaches and departures into and out of its runways will tend to have a few 'good old favourites' which get used for years and might only change for a while if there is maintenance going on or a NOTAM restricting a flyover of somewhere temporarily.

This of course doesn't help you in your flight sim if you are new to somewhere and don't have a friendly and knowledgeable co-pilot sat alongside you, but what will help you is listening to the ATC of an airport you are going to fly into and out of in your sim, and for most airports, you don't have to be in radio range to do that, or even have a radio, you can do it via the good old internet, by going here:

https://www.liveatc.net/

Decoding why airliners and the ATC which is controlling them use one particular SID or STAR is not too hard to understand either. Essentially, you don't want airliners flying all over the place in every direction to and from your airport, instead what you want is a few easily controlled ways in and out of the current runway in use, with airliners coming in and going out in/from a few different directions to get to a start point or end point which best suits either where they are going if it is a SID, or where they are coming from if it is a STAR. So the wind direction and which airway you are going to or coming from, will usually be a good clue as to what procedure is in use and will best suit you. Looking at the Jeppesen plates for these can help, but if you don't have those (you can usually find them on an airport's website), your FMC will most likely have the procedures in there if you select DEP and ARR and choose the runway, and having done this, if you scroll through the waypoints on the 'plan' setting on your FMC and observe the PFD map's magenta line, it should be obvious which procedure is the better one for you to use for your flight route

Of course a problem for flight simmers is that unlike real airline pilots, who tend to fly a few of the same routes all the time which means they get used to the procedures at those places, flight simmers have the entire world at their grasp and that is part of the reason why they can feel overwhelmed by wondering how airline pilots know all this stuff. But it's not magic, it is simply familiarity.

Similarly, you might have been impressed by the fact that you hear a pilot read back a massively lengthy taxi route to the runway and wondered how they managed to take it all in and read it back perfectly, until that is, you learn that A) they operate from that airport all the time and are used to the taxiways and B) the route ATC asks them to read back is also sent to their screen in the airliner, so they quite literally are 'reading it back' rather than having magically remembered it!

Last but not least, don't forget that you are doing the work of many people when you fly your simulated airliner alone, and not just a fellow pilot in the cockpit, also the cabin crew, dispatchers, service agents etc who all contribute to getting that big aeroplane from A to B, so don't be afraid to hit the pause button in your sim and take a breather between switching roles, because doing that, rather than rushing to try and do it all in real time, will actually make your operation more realistic rather than less realistic.

On 2/27/2020 at 7:25 PM, beeker46 said:

Now I have a question, regarding SIDS and STARS for FSX... how do you even know what approach to use, when you don't even know what runway you will be landing on until 50 of less NMs out?  And how could you possible figure all that out as the pilot wearing all the hats in the cockpit?  I have long wanted to use SIDS and STARS for FS, but never knowing how to even get STARted with it (get that pun, there?)

At least in the United States, a lot of the time, the route you have in your flight plan takes you to a transition to a STAR, so in most cases, you'll know which arrival you'll be using even before you know the runway.

10 hours ago, Chock said:

Last but not least, don't forget that you are doing the work of many people when you fly your simulated airliner alone, and not just a fellow pilot in the cockpit, also the cabin crew, dispatchers, service agents etc who all contribute to getting that big aeroplane from A to B, so don't be afraid to hit the pause button in your sim and take a breather between switching roles, because doing that, rather than rushing to try and do it all in real time, will actually make your operation more realistic rather than less realistic.

Just don't do that if you're on VATSIM. The controllers and the planes around you won't like it if you do that.