In a perfect simulated world, I would always choose to fly a STAR whose endpoint corresponds to the IAF of the Runway I land on.  It feels neat and tidy :)

Sometimes I plug in a STAR only to find out at some point, because of wind shifts, or other factors, that it will put me in an awkward position...for instance on the opposite side of the airport.

My questions are these:  How soon does an Airline pilot commit to a STAR and plug it into the FMS?  Do they always have an alternate STAR proggrammed into FMS2?  Does ATC assign the STAR enroute or is it something chosen by the pilot when he files the flight plan, or also enroute, based on his expected runway?  Finally, how common is it for the plane to arrive at the terminus of a chosen STAR and then be vectored around to the opposite side of the airport for the actual approach? 

A STAR is predicated by ATC requirements and is assigned by a controller.

I don't fly many stars... however....

I don't think ATC will give you a STAR that puts you on the opposite side of the airport... ie. a STAR for runway 09 (for example), when the active is 27.  I would expect it's more common to be given vectors for an approach (ie. vectors for a straigh-in ILS 27).

As for FMS... as soon as ATC says "expect *** STAR for rwy ***", i think that's when it would be punched in.

But like I said... don't have a lot of experience with STARS, so maybe someone who does could help us out...  ;)

Still confused...When I look at flight plans on Flight Aware, most of the pending departures already have the STAR in them before takeoff.  If the active runway were to change enroute, they would be hundreds of miles out of position.

I'm not even sure how to create a flight plan without "anticipating" the STAR for this reason:  the STAR must be entered at a Transition point.  Your flight plan must fly you to that particular transition point.  The transition point for a different STAR might be hundreds of miles away, thus radically altering your flight plan from the very start of the flight...for instance, you might take a different Airway altogether.

So I'm still confused.  Something isn't computing for me on this.  Is it fair to say that the flight plan is filed with the most likely STAR, but when the Transition point for that STAR is reached, if the STAR is no longer appropriate, the controlers just vector the plane in ???

Did I just make any sense? :)

My problem is always considering these questions from a real life point of view.  I suppose, in FSX flight planning, almost anything can be locked in and flown out to completion whereas, in real life, probably all arrival STARS are preloaded with the flight plan then, when the one in use is announced by ATC, activated and flown.

olderndirt wrote on Dec 11^th, 2010 at 11:16am:

My problem is always considering these questions from a real life point of view.  I suppose, in FSX flight planning, almost anything can be locked in and flown out to completion whereas, in real life, probably all arrival STARS are preloaded with the flight plan then, when the one in use is announced by ATC, activated and flown.

Until Radar Contact V5 comes out, I guess I'll keep doing what I've always done, which is pretend I'm recieving Vectors at the completion of the STAR.  I've actually had some of these questions since the days of FS2004 but since 90% of my time in FS I only fly boring circuits, I've never thought to ask until now.  Its kind of pathetic how rarely I fly cross country "realistic" flights in the sim. :)

Never tried one - in fact never do any ATC stuff - twenty one years was enough  :).

olderndirt wrote on Dec 11^th, 2010 at 8:08pm:

Never tried one - in fact never do any ATC stuff - twenty one years was enough  :).

Oh thats right, you're a real Controller!  In the future all of my admittedly arcane ATC questions will be addressed direct to you! :D :D

My problem is that when flying VFR, you don't get cleared for a runway until you're 30 miles from the airport..therefore making a STAR arrival kind of a moot point..in IFR you get vectored