Stars

[brucewtb 246]

I'm a little confused on how stars work in RC. Did a search of the forum and it seems in RC a star ends when you contact approach. However I have real life ATC wavs from Australian airspace where the approach controller says something like "cancel star fly heading xyz" implying that a star doesn't necessarily end when you contact approach. Also in the LDS 767 FMC you can't select your arrival procedure until you are about halfway through your flight so a star can never be part of your filed flightplan how does RC cope with this?.ThanksBruceb

[Subs 0]

Bruce,Even though US/Aust description of STARs maybe slightly different, you can accomplish flying a full published arrival in RC as well.In the USA it seems, STARS start a long way out, and terminate at Approach Airspace (approx 40nm out), after which vectoring takes place. In Australia though, the published STAR usually starts not that far out, and continues onto the runway.So in RC, what you would do is include all the STAR waypoints up to 40nm out. At 40nm, RC will transfer you to the approach contoller. At this point, you can have Approach sequence and vector you for the final approach onto the runway, or, you can ask for an Instrument Approach (IAP). Asking for an IAP, the controller will expect you to fly the full STAR (as we have in Aust), and will hand you off to TWR when you're established on final. But this also means Approach will *not* give you vectors. You must fly the published approach yourself. If you get lost, you can always ask for vectors again ;o)So by including the first few STAR waypoints in your plan, and asking for a IAP when entering Approach airspace, you can fly the full published arrival procedure until you're handed off to TWR.There is also extensive documentation about approach and arrivals in the manual. The included tutorials will also give you an idea on how RC handles the different stages of flying the airplane in an ATC environment.Subs

[Guest Douglas Thompson]

What Subin said, and...The "fly my STAR to rwy threshold" issue comes up often. This describes Profile Descent.I'm not familiar with SOPs other than those in the States. Profile Descent procedures have all but been abandoned here though I've heard a rumor the FAA plans to try them again. When? Hey, we're talking FAA here - who knows :-hmmm Since in RC, we can make Profile Descent a user option (again, an option), I imagine we'll go for it at some point. Then though maybe available everywhere (in RC), it'll ultimately be up to you to keep things realistic per rw or not.

[brucewtb 246]

Thanks. I do all my flying in Australia and have some understanding of local ATC procedures from days as a Psycholgist helping to screen ATC job applicants so I was little puzzled by the way they are used in RC. However, how do you then deal with situation in the LDS 767 where you can't insert star waypoints into the FMC until you are quite some way into the flight? It seems that the only way is to anticipate what arrival runway and related star you will need prior to departure and include them in the flightplan which is loaded into RC- not much use if you are flying Perth to Sydney when the weather on arrival may be quite different from when you filed your flightplan five hours earlier. I take it from what I have read that RC doesn't have a database of SID/STARS and transitions similar to that used by the major payware developers for their aircraft (LDS, PMDG, PSS etc)? So in the RC world if you declare your intention to fly a SID or IAP you could fly anywhere without being busted for departing from the published procedure. Bruceb

[ronzie 21]

If your STARs have a common entry point regardless of active runway then you create your FP to that point with destination as the final point. I pick the STAR entry point coinciding with the arrival direction.I have the PMDG 737NG models which FMC should operate similarly to the LDS 763. In preflight FMC setup I do not enter the arrival other than the possible runway in use which can be later changed.When in-flight and RC hands me the expected runway in use I go to the DEP/ARR page LSK ARR for the destination, LSK the STAR and RWY procedure and EXE the route and on the LEGS page close any DISCOs. I then request an IAP from RC as noted. The ND will then give altitude data as needed by clicking the DATA button on the ND control panel. Altitudes may also show on the LEGS page. These occur if the FMC database has altitude restrictions in the STAR.RC assigns the landing runway based first on the runway AI use if they are present and then if not follow priorities of runway facilities and weather as outlined in the manual. It makes sense to delay the FMC arrival entry until it is handed to by approach. Remember that on the FMC your STAR/IAP entry is converted to waypoints on the LEGS page and they can be deleted/edited/inserted as necessary to provide at the least a route guide on your ND. Usually the last stages of a STAR might be flown with LNAV/VNAV disengaged if taking vectors or just using the ND for nav guidance and use the MCP for these last stages.I also use NOTAMS for all arrivals just to cut some slack.I use charts/plates for arrivals so I can compare and note the waypoints for DPs and STARS. I use an external FSBuild flight planner that if I autogenerate a route includes a STAR in its route. The problem is that it exports the STAR as waypoints to to FS9/RC and to the FMC. Before I export I remove the STAR from the route and replace it with just the entry point. I bring this up because the database for DPs and STARs in FSBuild can be kept fairly well in synch via available updates on the aircraft site, navdata.at, fsbuild.com, and probably on the LDS site.The point is that the FS9 route should only include the entry point to the STAR and perhaps a few points within if appropriate due to a far out STAR entry until RC approach assigns the runway about 40 nm out I believe. When you select in the ARR page the STAR/RWY/IAP it should then be in synch for the first few waypoints between the plan and FMC. Since you then select from RC an IAP at the point where where RC offers vectors, all should go well.As an aside, I rather than departing arrived at Cologne (EDDK) (from the SW) expecting vectors. They were not offered (unless requested in the controller page which will tell you what to expect) which was my first experience in not having vectors offered. In this case RC gave me visual or IAP options after encoluntering the STAR entry. I just flew the RNAV plate selecting the ILS on the FMC which gave me the ILS RNAV waypoints for the merge. I mention this because this technique can be used in many situations at your option the the FMC or standard navaids as the aircraft permits.I have cockpit videos of EDDK arrivals and I expect this is the way it is handled at this location in the real world, that is the arrival pattern is assigned by ATC without vectors onto the merge to final.At this point let me suggest you part from $30 US and get Captain (retired) Mike Ray's book regarding flying 700 series sims on the PC described at www.utem.com and sold at serveral sim retail sites and Amazon. It goes into several practical procedures to follow depending on circumstances. It is an enjoyable read and answers many operations questions.

[ronzie 21]

Hi, Doug:At Mike Ray's site www.utem.com in the download section you get a chapter added to his manuals on CDAP. I think you might find it interesting from the pilot's perspective.

[jd 57]

>Thanks. I do all my flying in Australia and have some>understanding of local ATC procedures from days as a>Psycholgist helping to screen ATC job applicants so I was>little puzzled by the way they are used in RC. an atc shrink - that's priceless :-)> >However, how do you then deal with situation in the LDS 767>where you can't insert star waypoints into the FMC until you>are quite some way into the flight? It seems that the only>way is to anticipate what arrival runway and related star you>will need prior to departure and include them in the>flightplan which is loaded into RC- not much use if you are>flying Perth to Sydney when the weather on arrival may be>quite different from when you filed your flightplan five hours>earlier.since rc is going to ignore all checkpoints, inside 40 miles, there is no need to enter them in your .pln, unless you want to.what subs is saying, is -figure out what runway you're going to get, by getting the weather about 60 miles out. maybe get it again at 50 miles.enter the star that you want to fly into your fmc at that point.then when rc switches you to approach, ask approach for the iap approach for the star you entered.then you can fly, or your fmc can fly the star, the way you want to. rc will be out of the picture (he won't be watchdog-ing you, or giving you any vectors, so you better know where you're going), until he switches you to tower.isn't that the end result you're looking for? >>I take it from what I have read that RC doesn't have a>database of SID/STARS and transitions similar to that used by>the major payware developers for their aircraft (LDS, PMDG,>PSS etc)? So in the RC world if you declare your intention to>fly a SID or IAP you could fly anywhere without being busted>for departing from the published procedure. you can put your departure procedure into the .pln, and rc will hold you to where you should be flying.and since the star ends at approach, i don't need the star in the .plnjd>>Bruceb

[brucewtb 246]

Thanks Ron for your very comprehensive reply. Yes the LDS 767 FMC is very similar to the PMDG which I also have, however unlike the 737 if you bring up the DEP/ARR page on the FMC during preflight you can only enter departure details and you have to be some way into the flight before arrival details can be added. But I guess that isn't really an issue. In fact I seem to do things more or less as you do except that I use FSnavigator to generate flightplans. In Australia the government agency that regulates aviation has a very convenient site from where you can download real world aerodrome procedures and for the most part these correspond closely to what is in the LSD 767 FMC database.Bruceb

[brucewtb 246]

Yes an ATC shrink I was and in fact I did my masters degree studying what makes ATCs tick. Spent many hours sitting beside controllers in towers and centres all over Australia and in the US at Newark NJ. Look I'm going to have to go away and do more flights and experiment to see how I can integrate RC with my understanding of the way ATC operates in Australia.Bruceb

[Guest Douglas Thompson]

>>...I did my masters degree studying what makes ATCs tick.<

[jd 57]

yeah, help me understand that one.and when you're done, maybe you can do some work with programmers. probably a ying and yang "thang" :-)jd