STARs / Transitions: A nightmare outside of USA

[erikquinn]

Since implementing STARs, I've learned that just about every airport on the planet seems to want to use a "STAR" this a different way...

• USA has STARs that end at a single point, which either connects directly to an instrument approach, or else aircraft are to be vectored for the approach (almost always the latter).
  • Selection of STARs is not affected by arrival runway(s) in use.
• Many european airports have "STARs" that end at a single point, and then "Transitions" that connect the end of the STAR directly to an instrument approach.
  • Selection of STARs is not affected by arrival runway(s) in use.
  • Selection of Transitions is entirely dependent on arrival runway(s) in use.
• Malaysian airports have STARs that end at a single point, and seemingly always connects directly to an instrument approach. Transitions do not exist, as the STAR acts as both.
  • Selection of STARs is entirely dependent on arrival runway(s) in use.

It's becoming more and more apparent to me that the way a "STAR" is used is so fundamentally different country to country, that the way it was implemented in code will need to be improved, as it works great for STARs in the USA (the basis for their design), and works terribly/not-at-all/incompletely for just about everybody else. I'm not sure how to resolve it, but for now, it's kind of a mess outside of FAA-style airports.

This makes it really tough for people to create their home airports, and when able, it would be nice to rework them to be more generic, and have less conflicting nomenclature. For example, US airports have "transitions" which are the exit point of SIDs and the entry point of STARs, whereas in europe a transition is an entire procedure, just like a STAR, that connects the end of a STAR to a particular set of instrument approaches to a particular runway. To avoid that confusion/frustration/insantiy, it should be changed to entryPoint.procedureName.exitPoint. Additionally, a separate procedure, "transitions" should be added, because a STAR without a transition is basically useless in the european airports.

[eliuuk]

To add to your devastation, not all Malaysian airports have no transitions. I've just realised that Kuala Lumpur (WMKK) has got transitions!

[Maverick283]

If at any point a route control is to be implemented the following approach might be appropriate: Rather then thinking of STARs as a thing, and Transitions as a thing, and routes as a thing and so on why not treat them all the same? They usually all follow the same principle: be at a certain point at a certain altitude condition and maybe speed limit, then continue to the next. So basically a star is the same as a transition. Except for it is called different.

As for the commands:
-USA: Planes come in in a star and are to be vectored to final. Remains the same as it is now.
-Europe: Planes come in on a star and are either vectored to final or assigned a Transition by the user. Here a keyword like "trans" or "route" would make sense ("route MIQ26R" would do the MIQ transition to runway 26R).
-Malaysia: this is more complicated, but it sounds like the aircraft would come in at random headings and it is the job of the user to assign STARs as they would assign Transitions in Europe.

Hope this gives some inspiration to you hard working programmers!

[eliuuk]

It really just depends on the airport, and maybe the country. Transitions
in Malaysia and Singapore lead up to the first point in a STAR, which then
continue down to a point and then over to either radar vectors or localiser
interception. On the other hand, a few thousand miles away, Europe works
with a STAR, then a transition. Different countries bring more confusion,
some may use the FAA style, sone will use the normal European style and
some will go blagh, making this atc game having to adapt and change to suit
different STAR/transition style.
What is for sure though, STARs do exist for the majority of airports, and
most do not use radar vectors. The definiton of 'transition' is also yet to
be defined clearly.

[erikquinn]

The ATC repository is being migrated to it's new home at https://github.com/openscope/openscope,
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Closing this issue.