STAR without transition

There isn't a "no transition" selection equivalent in the IFD. What I did when I tried it on the sim (I'm using the 10.2 version which should be out soon for iPad and PC) is selected BIZKT from the transitions provided then went direct to SWTEE. It flew SWTEE to LACCE then assumes a manual transition (radar vectors) to the start of the approach.

I'm puzzled as to why the STAR is not available unless assigned? Does your flight plan get rejected if you file BIZKT.SWTEE1 or LPTON.SWTEE1? It's a published STAR for your destination, I would think you could file it - as long as your equipment suffix indicates that you are equipped to fly it?

In this case, the STARs are for satellite airports in Atlanta. They're NOTAM'd as "assigned by ATC only"; I was told that's because they're still being implemented but they'll be file-able by the end of 2016. It turns out that ForeFlight is perfectly happy to let you to put one of these procedures in your flightplan and file it, and Leidos will cheerfully accept it. Your local Clearance Delivery specialist may even read it back to you. However, eventually, when you get to Center airspace, you will probably get a reroute. It seems like filing one of these arrivals should probably be filtered out at some point before, say, 40 NM from the destination, but as Catani says, STARs/SIDs aren't for us pilots, they're for ATC convenience. 

Catani wrote: Unlike approaches, a canned procedure that helps a pilot, and which pilots can request and expect to receive as requested, SIDS and STARS are canned procedures designed to help ATC reduce workload.  It's a wonder that pilots are offered the opportunity to chose one in a flight plan - why would a pilot's preference matter?  Why bother to file them?  A pilot's guess should have no consequence to the controller who is in real time trying to fit airplanes into the system in as simple a way as he/she can manage. Like Mother Nature's wind shift at the destination that can force a re-evaluation of a pilot's choice of approach procedures, an ATC controller can elect to instruct a pilot to fly a SID/STAR that works best for the controller at the time the clearance is issued.  Pilots need to be trained to deal with these types of changes, be they caused by changes in weather or traffic.  Just as a pilot need not file an approach procedure in a flight plane because it's a decision he need not be made at the time, a pilot need not file a SID or a STAR because it's a decision to be made at the time by somebody else at the time. Do your homework so you can accept them when assigned, but don't bother to file them.

I disagree with this. Perhaps I have a different perspective as I am both an IFR pilot and an IFR controller. I can only properly respond in regards to the airspace I control and there are likely exceptions in some places, but (other than with thunderstorms) STARs do not change with wind/weather like runway/approach do. If runway changes, you may need to load a different transition, but it will still be the same STAR.

A STAR is also a convenience for the pilot in that it is much quicker to load the procedure than to manually dial in a whole bunch of waypoints and it eliminates the risk of a type-o on a fix name that could cause a nasty surprise for you (and the controller) if you didn't catch it in time. Also, if you file the STAR in the first place, you are more likely to get "... as filed" in your clearance which saves time for the controller not having to spell out waypoints and saves you writing down a lengthy reroute.

It often happens in my airspace that we get arrivals that filed direct - ignoring the published pref routes and STARs for the airports, and by the time we issue a reroute to pilot, it ends up added far more extra miles of flying than if they had just planned the STAR in the first place.


Edited by M20J - 19 Nov 2016 at 5:37pm