Flying long Stars

[Guest jlahtonen]

HiI find it very annoying that RC usually shows IAP approach menu item when control is given to approach. That usually happens 30nm before arrival. Many airports usually have longer approach routes and latest common fix to various runways is beyond that 30nm limit. On those airports (KSFO, EDDF, ENGM etc.)approach routes are practically useless.If there's some way to avoid this problem, I would like to hear about it.regardsJuha

[Auduns 0]

Hi there JuhaI don't know if this satisfy your need, but there is one way to get around the long STAR problem.What you do is to include the STAR you want to use in the flightplan, then RCv4 will let you follow the STAR until you get inside the 30nm boundary. But you will have to follow ATC instructions regarding altitude, but that is actually quite realistic, as ATC is rated above the STARS in the hierarchy.This will require som extra work, as you manually have to find the fixes and intersections contained in the STAR and load them into your flightplan, but who said flying is ment to be easy :DHope this helpsBest regardsAudun

[Guest jlahtonen]

Hi AudunThat's what I have been doing. Not a big problem in short flights, because weather usually stays same. In longer flights weather may change during flight and landing runway is different compared to your flight plan and Star. I can live with that, but hopefully in some future release of RC ...br Juha

[ronzie 21]

RC chooses your landing runway giving first priority to active AI. After that comes runway properties including NAVAID and weather influence.Usually most STARS have several common entry points based on arrival direction. These should be included in your flight plan. At 30 nm out RC approach will take over and offer you a change of runway for vectoring or follow the IAP as you know to allow your own navigation. This will allow you to pursue getting to the IAF you select using the final points of the STAR based on your arrival runway.That is basically all that there is in this version.Notice that either published in the STAR route description pages and in the FAA Terminal Procedure Manual it states it is not unusual for ATC to break away from a STAR based on local traffic needs.In RC terms the IAP can include part of the transition.I just looked at KLAX and for those runway specific STARS which usually have a point about 30 nm out to turn to the IAF RC can accommodate those.

[Auduns 0]

Hi againAfter I have flown a couple flights the last days I has also noticed that you can get the active RWY earlier than 30NM out, what I have seen is that when you are closer to airfield than 70NM you can pick up the ATIS for the airfield you are flying to. This is actually in most cases enough to alter or edit your STAR to fit with the active RWY, as often the different STAR's for the differemt RWY's have common start-points, if you use a planner like RouteFinder, it will generate a flightplan that starts at the endpoint of a SID (SID's are chosen both from direction out of area and active RWY) and it will end in a startpoint of a STAR.If you have the STAR plates for for example ENGM you will see that the STAR's for both the RWY 01L/R and RWY 19L/R have the same startpoints, wich is SIG, TOR, MES, SUMAK and SORPI, wich you also can see on these plates is that for the 01L/R STAR's all the STAR's are converging into to two points, which are SONER (SIGDAL3E & TORP3E) and BGU (MESNALI3E, SUMAK3E & SORPI3E). The EWY 19L/R STAR's are doing the same thing but here the two points are SOVIR and TOMRA.But the point is, the STARS are identical until you come to a distance of between 30 and 50 NM out of the airfield, this gives you plenty of time to get the active RWY from the ATIS service in RCv4, just press 2: Get WX Briefing, when you are within 70 NM from the Airfield.Sorry for the long boring explanation, but I hate to see anyone miss out on a wonderful program just because they have missed a minor detail. :DPS: Ofcourse it's also a must to have access to approach plates for the different airfields to get the most out of this wonderful product, one good tip in this regard is the nDAC software from Navigraph, yes I know it costs money to get the plates, but how much? A EURO for the coverage of a whole airport, and you download only the airports you need, and if you are into flying the really good birds like PMDG, LDS and the ATR just to mention a few, you probably already have an account for your NavData downloads ;)Okei I'm losing the control here, I shall stop now! :D:D:DBest regards, and happy flyingAudun

[jd 57]

getting the weather 70 miles out is covered in almost every tutorial. it is SOPjd

[Auduns 0]

Hi JDHehe, ofcourse it is :D and what does this show? ALWAYS read the manuals :DBut what do most men do when they get a new toy?(And I am now talking out of own experience here) First they throw away the manual/instructions and try to get it to work with the try and error method, if this does not work we search the forums for an easy answer, which is read the manual :D And we are ofcourse not satisfied with that answer so we bombard the said forum with questions we can find answers to with a quick read in the manual :DThen if we want this product to work we maybe search trough our garbage for the earlier mentioned manual :DSo to sum it all up, start in the other end next time around, read the manual first. And maybe our good friend JD can use less time on answering questions and more time perfecting an already perfect product.I know I will try, can't promise anything tough, but I'm going to try. :DRegardsAudun

[Guest jlahtonen]

>If you have the STAR plates for for example ENGM you will see>that the STAR's for both the RWY 01L/R and RWY 19L/R have the>same startpoints, wich is SIG, TOR, MES, SUMAK and SORPI, wich>you also can see on these plates is that for the 01L/R STAR's>all the STAR's are converging into to two points, which are>SONER (SIGDAL3E & TORP3E) and BGU (MESNALI3E, SUMAK3E &>SORPI3E). The EWY 19L/R STAR's are doing the same thing but>here the two points are SOVIR and TOMRA.>>But the point is, the STARS are identical until you come to a>distance of between 30 and 50 NM out of the airfield, this>gives you plenty of time to get the active RWY from the ATIS>service in RCv4, just press 2: Get WX Briefing, when you are>within 70 NM from the Airfield.>But you still need to know, which runways are in use. 01L/R or 19L/R, before you can create the flight plan. Stars for 01 and 19 have only one common fix, which is quite far from airport. If I only include that one fix to my flight plan, RC assumes that I continue direcly to airport after that final fix.br Juha

[VIPERGTSR01 22]

>But you still need to know, which runways are in use. 01L/R or>19L/R, before you can create the flight plan. Stars for 01 and>19 have only one common fix, which is quite far from airport.>If I only include that one fix to my flight plan, RC assumes>that I continue direcly to airport after that final fix.>>br JuhaYes this is a problem I have described here a while ago, there is no real fix for it.Now when I set up a flight plan (with long sids that don't have perfect transition points) I choose the SID for the most likely open rwy and if it turns out wrong I just continue until I get close enough to get transfered to approach and get vectors to the rwyway.

[ronzie 21]

If you open up the Controller Page you can before flight select your destination runway, choosing the most likely and hoping there will be no AI conflicts. I believe RC will then accept this for vectors when you get to approach. Include in your flight plan the STAR waypoints accordingly.I've never done this but I'd advise checking on this.From page 107 of the RC4 manual about the Controller Page.Below the frequencies, you will find two drop-down boxes with the runways available to youat the departure and destination airports. If you want RC to assign you a certain runway fortaking off and landing, choose it here. Otherwise, RC assigns the runway that is most suitablegiven the wind conditions and AI traffic patterns.

[Guest jlahtonen]

>If you open up the Controller Page you can before flight>select your destination runway, choosing the most likely and>hoping there will be no AI conflicts. I believe RC will then>accept this for vectors when you get to approach. Include in>your flight plan the STAR waypoints accordingly.>>I've never done this but I'd advise checking on this.>>From page 107 of the RC4 manual about the Controller Page.>>Below the frequencies, you will find two drop-down boxes with>the runways available to you>at the departure and destination airports. If you want RC to>assign you a certain runway for>taking off and landing, choose it here. Otherwise, RC assigns>the runway that is most suitable>given the wind conditions and AI traffic patterns.I have read the manual several times, but missed this part. Thanks!br Juha