SIDS and STARS without an FMC

SID's and STARS are used all the time at regional and international airports. To be as realistic as possible in FSX, we use these to depart and arrive at airports but the default ATC in FSX doesn't use them, which means we have to improvise. This guide should help you fly SID's and STARS by means of alternate navigation.

What are SID's and STARS?

SID's and STAR's are basically published routes for busy aiports (regional and international) that reduce the workload for ATC. A SID stands for Standard Instrument Departure and a STAR is a Standard Terminal Arrival Route. A SID goes from the runway and guides the aircraft to the first waypoint of its flight plan. A STAR does the same but the other way round, by routing the aircraft from its last waypoint to the Initial Approach Fix (IAF) or near the approach where ATC will vector the aircraft to the beginning of its approach.
Unfortunately, default FSX ATC doesn't use SID's or STAR's, they only vector you. So if you want to do realistic flights or you might even be on VATSIM or IVAO etc. you'll nead to do one or two things to ensure that you can fly SID's or STAR's.

The FMC

The FMC is a vital part of an aircraft that calculates many things like different speeds, weights, top of climb (TOC) and top of descent (TOD), and many more. It is also used to enter the flight plan, edit it, add holds and SID's and STARS. Because all the default aircraft in FSX and most freeware don't have FMC's, SID's and STAR's in these aircraft are harder to do than you think.

How to do it

The GPS is more helpful than you think and it will prove vital when flying SID's and STAR's. If you didn't know already, you can import flight plans off the web into FSX. All flight plans that you import before you load the flight appear on the GPS as well as your Navigational Display (ND) if you have one. If you don't know how to import a flight plan, learn it as it is necessary for what you will eventually do.

Now here's the important part:

SimBrief is a virtual despatching system on the internet that is BRILLIANT for flight planning. All you need to do is to sign up and plus its all FREE! I thoroughly recommend it as your number one flight planner. It provides ETOPS and FIRS, stepclimbs, detailed OFP's which are downloadable as PDF's and the flight plans produced can be imported into FSX using a number of flight plan types. If you use a PMDG aircraft (if you do, you shouldn't be reading this article as they have a very good FMC anyway), Aerosoft Airbus (same thing), fly FSX, FS9, X-Plane and a number of other payware aircraft, you can download unique flight plans to these systems.
SimBrief can recognise SID's and STAR's (lets call them S and S now for practicality) and automatically enter the individual waypoints in every S and S so that you can actually fly the S and S using every waypoint.
A new system in SimBrief called the RouteFinder is currently in BETA (as of April 2016). Once you enter your departure and arrival airports, your aircraft and departing and arriving runways, the RouteFinder will automatically find you a route and assign a SID and STAR to the first and last waypoint of the suggested route. It's extremely helpful, but you have to remember to have the charts for the S and S up so you can adhere to altitude and speed restrictions.
SimBrief requires a certain AIRAC database (it's an update the global database of waypoints, VOR's, NDB's etc. Every update adds news navaids.) If the S or S that you are using is new and in a newer AIRAC cycle than SimBrief, SimBrief won't recognise it. You can update SimBrief to bring it up to date but it requires a payment subscription to Navigraph.
You'll have to check the flight plan before processing, then you are ready to go.

If you don't want to use SimBrief, you can manually enter every individual waypoint of navaid in the default FSX Flight Planner. But this is time-consuming.

In practice

All this might be a bit confusing at first, but the next part will do a step by step walkthrough of what to do:

1. Get a flight plan from your departure to destination and note down the route. VATroute provides a waypoint at the start of the flight plan for the SID name andthe same for the STAR.

2. Look through the charts of the departure airport and destination airport and find the charts of the SID and STAR that you are going to use. The S and S will have identity names which you will need to note down.

4. Set up all the items in SimBrief and then copy and paste your flight plan into SimBrief. Also add the S and S identities to the plan. If the starting and ending fix are used in the S and S, delete the fix name and keep the S and S identitiy.

5. Check that the plan is correct and import it into FSX.

6. Fly the S and S, remembering to adhere to altitude and speed restrictions.

Happy Flying

[s.twist]

THERE ARE YOUTUBE VIDS FOR THE FMC DONT FUCK YOURSELF TRYING TO DO IT TRIAL AND ERROR USE THE TUTORIALS - MANY THANKS

[MichaelScarn]

Just to say, I don't know why Kaktus is on the previous comment! It should be Routefinder!

[flightmaster2015]

Great :)

[Brko]

Thanks very much Sir! :) I tried using the FSPilot application for SID's and STAR's once, but all it did was crashing :D It's very nice that you brought this information here, as I'm too lazy to google it for myself, and I'm not willing to pay 100€ for a plane :D Happy Skies!

[flightmaster2015]

Great :)

[MichaelScarn]

Thanks for comments. With the new feature Kaktus, it's much easier now to find SIDs and STARS because it automatically inputs them in but sometimes their suggestions can be a little weird.
Rob, I also mentioned payware aircraft earlier but I don't think i worded it right so thanks for pointing it out.

[RobSkipworth]

1 thing to remember, a lot of payware airliners like the PMDG NGX and the Aersoft airbus have SIDs and STARs built into their FMC/MCDUs!

[jakarcz]

Great article and thanks for the information. I am learning how to fly STARS at this time and yeah there is a learning curve to it, but I am getting better at it!

[30K]

Ehm you now that with the new feature of simbrief, the new route finder, you can just click Find SID/STAR an there you go-...... no need to look them up :D it`s just an advisory from myself :D