Departure Gates for New York Sector-Tracon!2012

[johnwy]

Am I correct in assuming that you can edit the SID/STAR .txt file in the databases folder by assigning airports to certain SID or STARs under the proper list?  Or is there more to it that is beyond the scope/limit of what is end user editable?

There has been more than one occasion where I have seen departing flights that were assigned departure gates that didn't make sense to me......  For example, departing flights from KJFK to KLAX had a departure gate that was east of JFK instead of west, flights to Canada were assigned departure gates to the south instead of north, etc...

 

Thanks....

[FeelThere_Vic]

You can edit the SIDs and STARs.

[fracasado]

In case you like to modify the flight path of the SID/STARS or to add new procedures you may use the airspace editor. But I do recommend to backup your files before any modification.

 

I did learn by myself that even though the files can be easily adapted to your needs it might be rather difficult to identify mistakes (e.g. when Tracon does not work correctly anymore with the modified files). In case you have a backup of your files it does save you a lot of time

 

 

Regards

 

fracasado

[johnwy]

Thanks Fracasado, however it's not the flight paths of the SID/STARS I am referring to.  

 

Although I have extensively tweaked the SID/STARS that TRACON included with the airspace editor,  my question is how the flights are assigned their departure gates and what the role the sidstar_jfk.txt file is in the simulator.  I have encountered situations where a flight will have a departure gate that seem out of the way from its destination.

As an example, a flight  that departs JFK with a destination of Fort Lauderdale and it has an exit gate assignment of Merit, or Parke, instead of Shipp, Dixie, or Wavey.  It's no big deal since flights may alter their flight plan to go around storms and such.  It only caught my eye since I witnessed flights make a complete 180º turn after I hand them off to center.  

 

Also, there have been times where a flight deviates from the published SID before they are handed off from the tower.  It gets a little frustrating because it can give you an unwanted penalty in certain situations. 

[707FAN]

 Johnwy

 

 It only caught my eye since I witnessed flights make a complete 180º turn after I hand them off to center.

I have seen this with a/c departing LAX for Asia.  (HKG,SEL,etc.) I queried feelthere back around 2013 & their reply was that the a/c followed the great circle route. Flights to HNL, SYD etc. were OK To overcom this I think I changed the lattitude of the Asian destination airports using the airport text file to a latitude about the same as LAX. This makes the a/c fly pretty much directly west afer handoff  instead for turning back east. Try it

 

Kev M

Brisbane

Australia

[fracasado]

Hello Johnwy

 

if you want your Fort Lauderdale departures to use the gate WAVEY I would recommend to write the sidstar_jfk.txt like this (abbreviated)

[...]
#JFK
#SIDS
JFK.WAVEY =
  KJFK:KFLL
[...]

Make sure KJFK:KFLL is not listed anywhere else. If you want them to fly via DIXIE it should read

[...]
#JFK
#SIDS
JFK.DIXIE =
  KJFK:KFLL
[...]

If you create a new SID (or STAR) or if an existing SID is missing add it with the respective airports in sidstar_[...].txt.

[...]
#JFK
#SIDS
NEWSID =
  KJFK:KFLL
[...]

The allocation of airports to the STARs is done in the same manner. (I do believe you knew that already or did find it out by looking into the file)

 

I made some observations according to the above definition procedure:

• The sidstar_[...].txt file seems to be working only correctly  as long as the respective airport is allocated to only one single specific SID (or STAR).
• If a specific airport is listed under several SIDs (or STARS) I observed that TRACON does use the first allocation it finds. So it seems to be necessary to use a unique allocation in the sidstar_[...].txt.
• If an airport is not listed at all Tracon seems to use a random (?) allocation of the SID (according to my observations, but I'm not quite sure about that)
• Any airport used within the file (the 4 letter Loaction Indicator) needs to be included in the airports.txt

If you hand off the flight to Center the TRACON does (always) turn the aircraft direct towards the destination airport (directly to the lat/long given in airports.txt) (as Kevin wrote in his post above).

I did workaround that (often annoying) fact by defining extended SIDs out of my area of responsibility (e.g. via an exit point located shortly after the sector boundary). So then if the artificial Center Controller turns the flight direct its destination it happens either outside or above of my sector).

 

After finding out these things and rewriting some lines of my sidstar_[...].txt the traffic flow looks much better in my point of view..

 

I did never observe deviations from SID before hand off from tower. May be you need to examine the SID definiton with airspace editor and redefine some flight legs

 

Regards

 

fracasado