Standard terminal arrival route

In aviation, a standard terminal arrival (STAR) is a published flight procedure followed by aircraft on an instrument flight rules (IFR) flight plan just before reaching a destination airport. A STAR is an air traffic control (ATC)-coded IFR arrival route established for application to arriving IFR aircraft destined for certain airports. Area navigation (RNAV) STAR/FMSP procedures for arrivals serve the same purpose but are used only by aircraft equipped with flight management systems (FMS) or GPS. The purpose of both is to simplify clearance delivery procedures and facilitate transition between en route and instrument approach procedures. A STAR is a flight route defined and published by the air navigation service provider that usually covers the phase of a flight that lies between the last point of the route filed in the flight plan and the first point of the approach to the airport, normally the initial approach fix (IAF). Hence, a STAR connects the en-route phase with the approach phase of the flight. A typical STAR consists of a set of starting points, called transitions, and a description of routes (typically via VHF omnidirectional range (VOR) radio beacons and airway intersections) from each of these transitions to a point near the destination airport, from where the aircraft can undertake an instrument approach (IAP) or be vectored for a final approach by terminal air traffic control. Not all airports have published STARs, but most relatively large or hard to reach (e.g., in a mountainous area) airports do. Sometimes several airports in a locality share a single STAR; in such circumstances, aircraft follow the same arrival route until the final waypoint, diverging thereafter for their chosen destination. Although the route segment of the filed flight plan does not usually change during the flight itself, the STAR to be flown might well vary according to the weather, the runway or approach in use, or the need to safely separate air traffic, among other factors.

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Modeling and Optimization of Terminal Airspace and Aircraft Arrival Subject To Weather Uncertainties

Maryam Kamgarpour, Wei Zhang

We develop an accurate model for the arrival traffic dynamics in terminal airspace that takes into account the weather forecast and runway configuration changes. The planning of runway configuration switching subject to weather constraints is formulated as a hybrid optimal control problem and a hierarchical approach is proposed to solve the problem. At the upper level of the hierarchy, a runway configuration sequence is determined based on weather forecast data and air traffic demand. At the lower level, the configuration switching times and the corresponding aircraft speeds are determined by solving a Mixed Integer Linear Program. We illustrate the utility of the approach by a case study inspired by operations in John F. Kennedy airport

American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics2011

Standard terminal arrival route

Instrument flight rules

In aviation, instrument flight rules (IFR) is one of two sets of regulations governing all aspects of civil aviation aircraft operations; the other is visual flight rules (VFR). The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration's (FAA) Instrument Flying Handbook defines IFR as: "Rules and regulations established by the FAA to govern flight under conditions in which flight by outside visual reference is not safe. IFR flight depends upon flying by reference to instruments in the flight deck, and navigation is accomplished by reference to electronic signals.