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Personally I would do pattern things. It's a lot of fun to land. It is actually a lot easier to land than you might think. I would definitely hand fly a pattern around your chosen airport. It is a beauty to hand fly. And just have fun. I'm sure they won't let you crash it too bad!

In most real world situations you just approximate what you need to do to the outbound leg to fix the inbound leg. If I knew the inbound leg had a headwind then I knew my outbound leg would need to be shorter than 1 minute and vise versa for a tailwind on inbound. I'm sure there is a formula somewhere to get the exact timing but it would be very difficult because of all the variables, i.e. crosswinds and shifting wings. Just guess what how much you need to extend or shorten the leg and make adjustments for what happens on the leg. Sometimes extending your outbound leg by 10 seconds might only extend your inbound leg by 3 or 4 seconds.

Hello Steven, It is the way US Jet routes are laid out. Sometimes two jet routes will share the same route for a portion of their layout. So in your example there are 2 jet routes, on J1 and J189. If you are on J1 prior to the joining you can use just J1. If you are on J189 just use J189. If you are on neither just pick your poison.

Yes your key should still work. Had to do the same thing the other day with my MD-11 and it went through without a hitch. If you have some issues wait a couple hours. I know RSR said there would be some service disruptions as they prepare for the 777 release.

I guess I'll throw my 2 cents into the fire. The controller did make an error in his clearance to Virgin 9. He should have stated that there was an aircraft holding in position on the runway he was intending to land on (7110.65 3-10-5b2). In this case Virgin would know that there is another aircraft on the runway about to take off and that he should be ready in case something happens and the aircraft is not clear of the runway. This procedure could only be used at the busiest airports where they have safety logic programs constantly monitoring the runways. At smaller airports the plane in LUAW would have to be cleared for take-off and be starting it's take off roll before the landing aircraft can be cleared to land (7110.65 3-10-5b1). In each scenario the landing aircraft knows about the aircraft it is following on the runway. Is it a perfect system, no. But new technology is making it safer. Fly into LAX's FSDreamTeam and if there is an aircraft on the runway the PAPI lights will be flashing. This greatly aids in situational awareness for pilots. One thing I've noticed in the US is most controllers will have 2 or 3 runways they are controlling at the same time. So the more you can get done right now is less you have to do in the future. JO 7110.65 http://www.faa.gov/documentLibrary/media/Order/ATC.pdf