After getting into some of the advanced flight planning features in the default airliners and the new CRJ - there are a few things I'm still confused about in terms of how flight planning works in the real world. I can narrow this down to three main questions (see below) and would be grateful for any real world pilots who can chime in and clarify! 

 

1) How do you know which runway you will be arriving at when composing a flight plan?

- The active runway can change multiple times per day based on weather and windspeed / direction

- Tools like the MSFS planner and Simbrief don't seem to "know" what the currently active runway is and let you pick any runway you'd prefer

How does it work in the real world? Do you look up the currently active runway somewhere before creating a flight plan? What if it changes mid-flight?

 

2) Simbrief and MSFS make it seem like you have full control over your route - is this true in real life?

- When I look at real world traffic patterns, almost all aircraft seem to follow the same exact arrival flow 

- Wouldn't it create chaos if flights could choose random waypoints and vectors, and  zig zag all over controlled airspace as they please?

- I know there are specific arrival patterns, but is there one in particular that is the "currently preferred" arrival pattern at any given time? (based on weather, etc...)

In the real world, is there a preferred arrival pattern that most pilots follow? Does ATC limit your route options?

 

3) As you get closer to an airport, does ATC alter your route, or do they let you follow your flight plan most of the time?

- I'd imagine heavy traffic results in lots of queue / hold patterns

What do you do when you are rerouted? Is there a mad-scramble to punch in new vectors into the FMS? Is that stressful?

 

Thanks for any insight!

 

 

 

 

Edited March 18, 20215 yr by enright

Nothing dumb about those questions whatsoever and well done for asking.

1) It's unlikely you'll know which Runway you will be arriving at - if you have any considerable distance to fly - as, you quite rightly observe - weather changes, and thus Runways.

Especially if you're taking a 777 from Frankfurt all the way to Narita, Japan - 10,000 miles and 11 hours later! But you'll get the "gen" if you tune the Airport ATIS from anywhere from 60 NM out.

2) Nope. However, depends on the level of ATC. See these videos for clarification of Levels of ATC.

 

3) Depends again; If you're in Radar controlled Airspace under full ATC then yes - they'll tell you where, at what height and what speed to fly.

BUT, remember, you're pilot in command so ultimately, ALL ATC is advisory - apart from if you're in Class D Airspace - in which case - do what you're told or else. Having said that; don't forget the power of being able to say; "Unable" - if you can't do THAT speed, or THAT HDG, etc.

Also,

I always refer young pilots back to this one; (It tells you everything that no-one did about how to go about Flying The Aircraft First and then everything else (including ATC) will follow naturally as part of your Flows.

American Airlines Chief Pilot shares the knowledge. You cannot watch this film too many times.

 

Edited March 18, 20215 yr by Will Fly For Cheese

10 minutes ago, enright said:

How do you know which runway you will be arriving at when composing a flight plan?

You check the METAR and TAF. Usually this is enough to give you a general idea.

 

11 minutes ago, enright said:

Simbrief and MSFS make it seem like you have full control over your route - is this true in real life?

This is done by dispatchers who uses route optimiziation software ( @fluffyflops ) . At least in Europe these plans are then sent to CFMU in brussels for approval in order to get some sort of control of all the flights across the various FIR's.

 

14 minutes ago, enright said:

As you get closer to an airport, does ATC alter your route, or do they let you follow your flight plan most of the time?

This question can have thousands of different answers. Some Airports rely on standardized arrivals, while some would Vector you from very far out. 

Finally, I do not fly commercially, but my advice would be to fly autopilot heading/ track if being vectored and don't fiddle with the FMS unless you want to clean up the LEGS page or change approach.

19 minutes ago, SAS443 said:

This is done by dispatchers who uses route optimiziation software ( @fluffyflops ) . At least in Europe these plans are then sent to CFMU in brussels for approval in order to get some sort of control of all the flights across the various FIR's.

 

 

this is not that simple its depending on quite a few things. 

1.first thing that comes to mind is "overflight permits"   Iran, Iraq,Somalia  for example, some airline's insurance companies wont insure you to overfly these places

2.the other and I raisied it on here before are "FIR entry and FIR exit points"  the 3 countries that are real buggers for this Russia,China and Mongolia.  so you have to plan your route on what entry / exit point russia wants, what entry / exit point the mongols want and what entry / exit waypoint the chinease want.  Then all 3 have to tally up or you cant fly the route.

3.The other is notam air space closures,  the canadians like doing this.

4. Are you polar equiped 

5. Are you RVSM approved , are you HF or VHF approved , cpdlc approved,  (the amount of annoying uni students in my life asking me why couldnt an easyjet  a319 cant go down T9 to the Canaries, but 320 can etc etc etc   

6 your enroute alternates +  etops,  no point planning a route using an airfield with a low fire category,  need to be able to put you out if you land there on fire.

7. Planning longer routes than you need to make sure you dont land before curfew or before the early expensive slot

8.Avoid countries due to cargo.  Austria is a big one for this.  you carrying arms, they wont let you fly over it.

9.  Proformance related MELS  for example, Pitot out, you avoids icing on the charts.

10.  Planning to make you avoid weather, looking at the high sigs, or the mach shears

I could list more but id bore you to death.  its not as easy as people think.   

   

Edited March 18, 20215 yr by fluffyflops

You neverknow which runway you will have when arriving. I used to fly out of Ft Lauderdale airport and remember the runways being changed twice in the space of an hour due to a wind shift. 

1 hour ago, Will Fly For Cheese said:

Nothing dumb about those questions whatsoever and well done for asking.

1) It's unlikely you'll know which Runway you will be arriving at - if you have any consideable distance to fly - as, you quite rightly observe - weather changes, and thus Runways.

Especially if you're taking a 777 from Frankfurt all the way to Narita, Japan - 10,000 miles and 11 hours later! But you'll get the "gen" if you tune the Airport ATIS from anywhere from 60 NM out.

Got it - very helpful and confirms my basic understanding - but is also why I'm confused about the runway selections in flight planners. Is it best practice then to select an approach and runway before you depart, or is it better to wait until you are XX miles out? To me, it seems dangerous to mentally prepare and visualize an approach that is highly likely to change by the time you arrive. 

I like the automation dependency presentation - it expresses my exact concern - do pilots ever fly the wrong approach because it's keyed into the FMS and they forgot to update it, or were so mentally fixated on arriving via a certain route that they get confused? I guess ATC would be harassing you long before you attempted to land in the wrong direction - just curious what best practice is.

3 minutes ago, enright said:

Got it - very helpful and confirms my basic understanding - but is also why I'm confused about the runway selections in flight planners. Is it best practice then to select an approach and runway before you depart, or is it better to wait until you are XX miles out? To me, it seems dangerous to mentally prepare and visualize an approach that is highly likely to change by the time you arrive. 

I like the automation dependency presentation - it expresses my exact concern - do pilots ever fly the wrong approach because it's keyed into the FMS and they forgot to update it, or were so mentally fixated on arriving via a certain route that they get confused? I guess ATC would be harassing you long before you attempted to land in the wrong direction - just curious what best practice is.

I use PF3 for my ATC and it gives you the landing runway as you approach the airport, depending on the wind and active runway that AI is using. 

1 hour ago, SAS443 said:

Finally, I do not fly commercially, but my advice would be to fly autopilot heading/ track if being vectored and don't fiddle with the FMS unless you want to clean up the LEGS page or change approach.

That makes sense, and I have noticed that when flights I'm on take an unusual route, the aircraft is sometimes noticeably hand-flown. In real life, will ATC vector you in if they need you to deviate from your flight plan? Or would they ever say "AA320, please use the XYZ arrival" and expect the pilot to understand the associated route / waypoints?

Nothing wrong with making Runway Predictions when Flight Planning - In Simbrief, for instance, and then popping that into your ARR for your FMC in the cockpit. In fact part of that mentality of having an end point  - mentally prepares you to be able to adapt and change Runways - if your weather predictions have gone wrong, and actually puts you in a better position were you not to have bothered at all in Planning your Arrival. 

As said in the AA video - if you've been planning for 27 and they give you 32 - what's the big deal? you're already at or very near the height and all you've got to do is turn left a bit and then centre it up for  32. OFF with AP, Click Click, Woop, woop, and just fly the aircraft around 'til she's on the extended line and G/S looks good.

If you hadn't planned for either you'd be a bit lost by now.

As a rule; Best prediction before flight is better than no prediction at all because it mentally prepares you - you've got that picture in your mind - and that is what it's all about.

There's nothing remotely impressive about an aircraft flying itself down an ILS on an Autoland with a pair of pilots sitting back with their arms folded chewing the fat and talking about Golf.

There's Everything beautiful in the World with a pilot snapping off the Automatics at 1500' after murmuring to his copilot; "I've got her." then stabilising, hand flown, and coming in with a perfect approach, flare, reverse, decel and vacation of the runway.

This should be your aim.

Leave the Automatics to the AI aircraft. They're both so boring they deserve each other.

Edited March 18, 20215 yr by Will Fly For Cheese

In flight sim land I'd plan departure and arrival runway on wind.  That's the easy answer.  Oh and by wind I mean if the wind is 270015KT on the METAR, plan the runway closest to 270 degrees.  Like 27 or 29 or 23 etc etc.  Same for arrival.

34 minutes ago, ryanbatcund said:

In flight sim land I'd plan departure and arrival runway on wind.  That's the easy answer.  Oh and by wind I mean if the wind is 270015KT on the METAR, plan the runway closest to 270 degrees.  Like 27 or 29 or 23 etc etc.  Same for arrival.

+1²

3 hours ago, enright said:

- The active runway can change multiple times per day based on weather and windspeed / direction

This would be highly unusual. Not saying never. But your concern is greatly unfounded. Only once in my life have I see the active runway change from one end to the other, -and- then change back within any short time frame. And for 3 1/2 years it was my responsibility to make those calls during my airport weather station shifts.  That would be especially rare at a major airport.  Rare turning a significant airport around multiple times in a day. Turning a major airport around is no small task for ATC, ground ops, and airline ops.  Winds do not change like that several times a day.  And turning any significant airport around multiple times in a day would entail incredible flight delays and air congestion.

As Ryan states you can look at the Metar to see what the wind direction is at the time you are planning.  Beyond the Metar you should also then look at the TAF (Terminal Area Forecast) to see if the forecast for the anticipated time of your arrival, or close in time proximity to your planned arrival is forecasting winds significantly different from the metar.   The metars hold more weight as they are based on actual weather observations as opposed to forecasts.

Edited March 18, 20215 yr by fppilot

4 hours ago, enright said:

1) How do you know which runway you will be arriving at when composing a flight plan.

You'll have a reasonably good idea from experience of normal operations, prevailing winds etc, however, there is no way to be absolutely certain. Some airports alternate their runway in use if they have more than one which is favourable for the wind at the time, or close one to allow the other to be cleaned or its equipment to be serviced, or they might use both, or they may favour one over another for some other last minute reason. However, the ATIS for most airports will tell you this and most airports (in Europe at least) are linked to a central control organisation which amongst other things, will allow you to find out which runway is in use at your destination as you plan, or when you depart, or whilst you are en-route. You can also get this information over systems such as ACARS from your airline, or service agent, or more modern alternatives to ACARS found on newer airliners such as the A220. You could also use the Volmet radio frequencies, which give you data for weather all over Europe and lots of other places around the world, including cloud coverage, winds etc, which would help you at least have a decent idea of which runway you'd be likely to be sent to and whether it could be a visual approach etc. This would let you stick the runway and STAR etc in your plan, but if it changes, it's not very hard to change it in the FMC, and many FMCs can store more than one route alternative too as a secondary plan and so on, allowing you to set up a few choices.

4 hours ago, enright said:

2) Simbrief and MSFS make it seem like you have full control over your route - is this true in real life?

For simmers yes, but for airliners and crews in the real world, no not really, that's the job of the dispatchers most of the time, since they are aware of what the aeroplane will be carrying, any restrictions (permanent or temporary) which can affect a route, what the crew and aeroplane can do legally etc, and where they want the aeroplane to end up if it has to divert and so on. This is why much of the time the flight plans are not actually done with the aeroplane's computer equipment, but on external software and then this is dumped into the nav system either automatically, or copied. Sometimes this actually has to be done in order to get the aeroplane to accept the route since the FMC in the aeroplane won't allow certain routing, but the external software will. We used to have to do this with Thomas Cook A321s on occasion for certain longer distance routes to Africa, since these were right on the ragged edge of the aeroplane's range, but the variants we used had additional fuel tanks installed in the rear hold area and this tended to make the actual aeroplane's weight and balance software on the FMC freak out when inputting the related data using the FMC alone.

Of course once the plane is in the air, the crew are in command and even though they are following a flight plan, if they feel it is necessary, they can override it so long as they have a good reason to do so. It's almost always up to the crew to decide how much fuel they want; they might get advice on it, or recommendations, but it's generally their choice since that's to do with actually operating the aeroplane. Essentially, a commercial airline pilot is a bus/truck driver in the sky; i.e. they have a route to fly and a timetable to adhere to, and it is their job to fly that route and keep to that schedule, but how they go about doing that is where their skills and knowledge come in.

4 hours ago, enright said:

3) As you get closer to an airport, does ATC alter your route, or do they let you follow your flight plan most of the time?

- I'd imagine heavy traffic results in lots of queue / hold patterns

What do you do when you are rerouted? Is there a mad-scramble to punch in new vectors into the FMS? Is that stressful?

This can vary, however, what you need to be aware of is that there are 'slots' at airports, i.e. if there is a daily KLM flight to Amsterdam from Manchester at 10am, then it will have a departure slot for that time and Euro control will be aware of this, so they and all the controllers along its route will be expecting it, and any other aeroplanes due in that area at the same time, so if those controllers are aware of this, they should be able to manage things properly. Occasionally, like any system, things can go a bit awry though and when this happens the first 'line of defence' to avoid big traffic jams over and near airports, is to negate the possibility of them even occurring in the first place, by delaying the departure slot for an aeroplane before it has even taken off, so in our example, if things were looking like they were getting busy at Amsterdam, that KLM plane on the ground at Manchester at 9.30am and expecting to push out in 30 mins, might get told, you can't depart before 11.30 am, but we'll keep you posted if this changes. Then the crew just has to sit there and wait until their new later slot opens.

Similarly, a crew might expect a hold or some such en-route and they would normally be told to expect one, rather than having it dropped on them at the last second, so they would have time to program radios etc. This is a bit like when you are ready to land, you program in all the stuff for the go around as well, so that if you decide to go missed, you know what to do and will have it on the FMC already.

Controllers are not inclined to drop surprises on crews, but they are there to expedite stuff if they can, so if an aeroplane can be made to skip some waypoints in a STAR, or even the entire procedure and just go straight for lining up the ILS from a vector, then ATC will do that, and they will also tell crews there's 'no speed restriction' sometimes too, although dropping restrictions is more likely to occur outbound than inbound, since normally you'd be trying to slow down rather than speed up.

As you can see, the vast majority of this stuff is pretty much what you'd expect and mostly common sense.

Edited March 19, 20215 yr by Chock

Here is brief for flight planning summary:

• MINIMUM VFR/IFR EQUIPMENT
• WEATHER REPORTS AND FORCASTS
• AIRPORT INFORMATION (A/FD)
• FUEL REQUIREMENTS (POH, WEIGHT AND BALANCE)
• ALTERNATIVE AIRFIELDS
• TRAFFIC DELAYS

Not sure I have ever seen three simple questions answered with more complex responses.  I've been involved in either aviation or flight simulation for now 50 years and am bewildered here,,,,,  I might ask the original post member to provide his level of experience and thus the depth of his questions to help guide this discussion.  I fear that for lack of that some may head for shelter.

If you are flying a 777 for 11,000 miles to Japan, in real life you will have access to the current metar at anytime via acars.  You will probably check at around 20 miles out from your top of descent and program that approach into the FMS.  And that is one of my larger issues with MSFS 2020 - in a big jet you need this around 120-100 miles out, and in this sim not only is that info not available, it is not even generated at that point.  If your plugging in complete approach/runway into the box at 30 miles out, heavy metal, single pilot - forget about it.

For flying a small Cessna, no problem, you have time, anything larger simply not happening.  This single reason is why I wait patiently for third party WX program - not for the pretty clouds but simply access to the arrival data.  Metoblue will never provide this through the sim.