I am new to the flight sim world and need a bit of help, excuse my ignorance. I beleive that transitions will help you to get on to a final approach and they are published in NATS. Don’t seem to be able to access Nat’s. Can you find then elsewhere, does this make sense. My aim is flying a flight plan that would put on the localiser for an ILS approach. Hope you guys can help.
Regards
Michael.
There is no way to select approach transitions from the globe menu that I’m aware of.
You can select approach transitions when loading and activating approaches from the in plane computers.
There is no way, at all, to select sid or star transitions in the game.
In the globe menu after picking your destinations if you select IFR (high alititude airways) it will show enroute waypoints, and give you drop down boxes where can select from a list of available runways and SIDs for departure and runways and STARs for arrival.
None of that is relevant to what I said
If you say so 
The problem I find is that if you use the in-game ATC they will sometimes put you on different runways and approaches from your flight plan. This is probably realistic due to airport operations, wind changes etc. but I find it hard to manage those dynamic changes in the game.
The question was regarding transitions. You outlined a way to choose SIDs, STARs, and approaches from the globe menu. None of those controls have anything to do with transitions. Well, other than your suggestions not allowing for you to choose the transition. Partly because, as my comment said, approach transitions can only be chosen in flight and SID/STAR transitions are completely absent from the game.
What? No. I’ve flewn several transitions myself even though the ATC might change them. Which isn’t really unusual. From my observation, ATC complies to things like METAR, NOTAM, ATIS and, for example, changes runways due to weather conditions which, of course, changes your departures and arrivals.
Or am I missing something here?
@OP: transitions are usually to help ATC with “lining up” aircrafts in high traffic areas as they provide some extra miles to sort aircrafts into slots before landing or after take-off.
As mentioned above, make sure to select IFR in order to be able to select SID and STAR and also make sure that you chose the correct runway to lower the chances to get your route changed by ATC.
For example, if you chose runway 07 for arrival while runway 25 would be the open runway due to wind conditions and so on, the ATC is likely to switch you to RWY 07 which of course will mess up your flight plan.
Also, I figured to leave approches on “Direct” and only select the arrival (e. g. ILS 07) it makes it easier to reprogram the FMS in case anything changes during flight. Even in an 1h flight there can be a drastic change in wind directions in some areas wich can make changing runways mandatory. Keep in mind that also an approach that doesn’t have free slots might make it inevitable to change your route.
Not sure if this answers your question but I hope it helps.
Yes. As my first reply states. Now in greater detail:
TL:DR
Approach transitions exist in the sim. You can only choose the one you want while in the flight. SID/STAR transitions are not able to be chosen anywhere in the game.
Approach transitions exist in the sim but only give you the ability to select them from inside the plane. If you use the globe to create your flight plan, the system just chooses whatever transition it feels like for the approach. You are not given the ability to decide. You can choose the transition if selecting the approach from inside the flight. You choose the approach and then you can also choose the transition. I too like to leave the approach to direct and have it be assigned by ATC for precisely the reasons you outlined. No big deal in approach land.
SIDs and STARs do not, in any way, allow you to choose transitions. There is no ability to choose it in the globe or in the plane. This really isn’t directly relevant to the OP’s plight but I included it as a blanket description to cover all the transition bases. It is completely omitted from the game. This proves exceptionally problematic when trying to plan flights as you sometimes need to fly 100 miles out of your way. Now, depending on where you fly, this may go unnoticed. In Europe, at least from what I’ve seen, there are no SID or STAR transitions. They just have a different SID or STAR. In the US, conversely, SID’s and STAR’s often will have multiple transitions. Here’s an example:
There are four main branches and, from what I can see, 8 different transitions (its late and I’m tired if my counting is wrong). The game provides 0 way to choose between them either in the globe or in the plane. It has one that it always goes to. Flying up from Mexico and want to fly the star via ELKEY but the game is locked to the Avenal transition? You get to fly halfway up california and turn around. The only way is to ignore the STAR selection and manually input each waypoint as you would the rest of the flight plan. The problem is you then lose the ability to see crossing restrictions if you add things in game.
Can I ask you,
why you want select arrival, approach or transition on Main flight screen, your destination weather can change in time of your arrival. You select arrival, approach in time you’re near arrival first point when you know destination weather.
I too am one who likes to set the arrival and departure airport but leave the runway choices for both Dept/Arr up to the ATC. However I have a couple of problems with this.
Normally by the time the ATC announces the arrival runway, and I quickly re-program the FMC arrival (by going to FPLAN clicking on the arrival Airport then selection Arrival Runway and Transition then inserting into Flight Plan) - however almost always it turns the aircraft around and flys me back to previous waypoint before then commencing arrival.
The other problem I have found is that if you clear the waypoints in the FMC then simply choose the destination airport via Direct - it then gives NO transitions or approach waypoints and just gives you a single waypoint to the airport ie. does not line you up with the runway.
Anyone else have this problem ? I’ve looked at various FMC tutorials but none of them address these issues.
I am using the a32nx modfied A320 not sure if that has something to do with the second issue of no Transitions available when erasing the flight plan and choosing Direct, however the first problem of flying you back to previous waypoint has been there since Day 1…
Appreciate any suggestions !!
Is this to the OP or to me?
I’ve found that it announces the approach far too late. One thing you can do is tune the atis manually and they generally are accurate in what approaches to expect and, certainly, what runways to expect. You might not be able to choose the approach just then but it makes getting things ready to press the button a bit easier.
Known bug. VERY annoying.
Yes I have exactly the same problems you describe. Sorry no solution.
On the discussion about transitions, in real life I think there is a difference between Europe and America on how these are defined.
Hello,
sry, I’ve set reply to first post of this topic and see that no receiver is set
No worries. I didn’t want to go blabbering on for a question to someone else
Thanks for the quick reply !
I am going from memory here (not in front of sim at moment) but tuning manually do you mean from the ATC or actually via the A320 controls ? Problem either way here is finding the ATIS frequency of the arrival airport - the VFR map is no help and from memory the ATC wont automatically give you the ATIS frequency until you are near the airport.
So is there a workaround ? I find the FMC in the A320 very flaky in this regard ie trying to skip that waypoint and fly onto the next - I cant figure out how to do this.
I exclusively fly the CJ but same idea. I will manually tune the com2 frequency starting 100ish miles away. The game is really weird at how it picks up com2 frequencies when they come in range so I generally have to cycle things a few times. As far as finding frequencies, if you’re using current charts, the atis frequencies have been 100% correct for me so far. Otherwise, I believe you can pull them from the globe menu before flying. Just jot it down on a piece of paper and go fly. I believe you can also pull it from the waypoint info page on the tbm (this is obviously not useful for you in the a320). If you don’t have it beforehand you wont get the ability to tune the atis until you’re handed off to the tower.
None that I’m aware of. Its all kinds of lame.
Not sure if I can follow, I apologize. I’ve never flewn into or from KLAX but I just checked on EDDM which I’m often around.
I just checked the STARS there and I can chose all available arrivals starting at the correct transition fix and ending at the correct IAF. There’s really not more I could chose from in between as the routes are following the exact same fixes as published in the charts.
I might be seriously stuck mentally here, sorry for that.
No no haha. I suspect both of us are correct in what we’re saying. We’re just talking about two different things. Here’s a STAR chart from EDDM. This is what I was getting at with my Europe and US differences before. This is also precisely why I think STAR transitions don’t exist in the game. European arrivals appear to just split their transitions into their own STAR’s. You’ll notice that there are 4 different STAR’s on the chart for EDDM. The chart for KLAX that has 4 branches is only for ONE STAR not 4 like the branches would suggest if you’re used to European charts:
The chart appears to show a similar setup to the KLAX chart with one key difference. All of the “transitions” shown on the chart are physically different STARs. So instead of choosing the ARBAX transition vs the BAGMI transition, you’re just selecting the ARBAX 4A or the BAGMI 5A STAR. That doesn’t exist in the US. All of those would fall under the “LANDU” STAR if that was in the US (or whatever the common point is. SADDE in my LAX example). The STAR’s should be treated, at least for the US, the exact same way that approaches are treated. Where you would choose ILS whatever and then the system would prompt you to choose the transition, you should choose SADDE8 and then be prompted for the transition.
Gotcha. Interesting. Eurocentric me denying the rest of the world again. But I see what you mean now. In my understanding the transition (fix) was simply the entry point for a STAR while it seems to be also the route TO that fix (see chart)?
Ok that one is really interesting. It’s like a mix of the European and US ways. Out of curiosity, since I’m not near my msfs computer, what happens when you try to load up either the EELDE 1A or B STAR? I’m guessing what will happen is it will choose one of those 5 transition points (I’m going to guess DOBAK) and there will be no way to change it. So if you want to come in via TEMLU, you’ll end up flying all the way over to DOBAK before turning towards EELDE. Or, will it just ignore them and have you come in directly to EELDE?
