KLAX → KJFK Transcon (J146)

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📍 Route: KLAX → KJFK via J146⏱ ~10 minutes📊 8 steps🎓 Line Flying

Los Angeles to New York the way it is actually filed: a SID, the J146 jet route, and the CAMRN arrival into JFK.

What this scenario covers

A transcon is the full exercise. INIT for a long-range flight, a departure procedure out of LAX, an airway insertion for the enroute structure, and an arrival into one of the busiest terminal areas in the world — each of which you have practised separately.

J146 is a real FAA jet route, and inserting it exercises the AIRWAYS path properly: a long airway with many waypoints, joined at one fix and left at another. Both ends have to be on the airway — revise it from a point that is not, and the MCDU answers AWY/WPT MISMATCH. The departure ends at SXC, which J146 does not touch, so the plan reaches the airway at DAG first.

How it applies in flight ops

On a five-hour domestic sector there is time to program carefully, and crews use it: the plan gets loaded, cross-checked against the OFP, and briefed properly before pushback. Long flights are not harder to program, they are just longer.

The CAMRN arrival into JFK is the eastern seaboard at its busiest, and it carries constraints that shape the whole descent. Loading it early means the FMGS descent path is realistic from top of descent rather than being rebuilt on the way down.

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Step-by-step: KLAX → KJFK Transcon (J146)

On the INIT page, enter the route. Type KLAX/KJFK and press 1R.
The FROM/TO field tells the FMS the route endpoints. KLAX = Los Angeles, KJFK = New York Kennedy. Real-world airline OFPs always quote 4-letter ICAO codes (not 3-letter IATA like LAX/JFK) for navigation systems.
Enter the flight number AAL10 (American Airlines flight 10, a real LAX→JFK service). Type AAL10 and press 3L.
Flight numbers identify the flight to ATC, ACARS, and flight tracking. AAL is the ICAO code for American Airlines; the radio callsign is "American 10". On the OFP, this matches the IATA flight number AA10.
Enter cost index 80 (typical transcon airline CI). Type 80 and press 5L.
Cost index balances time-cost vs fuel-cost. CI 80 is on the higher end — used when on-time arrival matters more than fuel savings (typical for transcon morning departures hitting hub connection banks). The FMS uses CI to compute optimum climb/cruise/descent speeds.
Set cruise altitude FL350 (eastbound, odd FL per semicircular rule). Type 350 and press 6L.
The semicircular rule prevents head-on conflicts at cruise: above FL290, eastbound is odd, westbound is even. FL350 is a sweet spot for transcons — high enough for fuel efficiency, low enough that most A320/737-class jets can climb directly without step-climb.
Now press the F-PLN page key to view the route. Then click LSK 1L on the KLAX waypoint to open LAT REV.
LAT REV (Lateral Revision) is how the Airbus MCDU lets you edit the flight plan at a specific waypoint. At the origin airport, it exposes the DEPARTURE option for SID selection. At the destination, it exposes ARRIVAL for STAR selection. Anywhere enroute, it gives AIRWAYS> for airway insertion.
On LAT REV FROM KLAX, press 1L to open DEPARTURES. Pick runway 06L first, then a SID from the list that appears, and INSERT* with 6R.
A real MCDU builds a departure runway-first, and the SID list you get is filtered to the departures that serve the runway you chose — pick a 24 or 25 runway instead and SXC8 is not offered at all, because it has no coded branch off them. The KLAX runways and SIDs here come from the FAA's own coded procedure data (CIFP), the same cycle airlines fly — the FAA does not code every departure an airport publishes. SXC8, the Catalina departure, goes out over the SXC VORTAC on Santa Catalina island before turning south or east. Inserting adds that departure's own fixes to your F-PLN between KLAX and the next leg.
SXC is not on J146, so the airway cannot start there. Type DAG and press the LSK on the discontinuity line: DAG takes that line and the discontinuity moves down below it. Clear it — press CLR, then the LSK beside the discontinuity. Then type J146, press the LSK on the DAG line to open AIRWAYS, enter JFK as TO (1R) and press INSERT* (6R).
J146 is a real FAA jet route from the LAX VOR east to JFK, passing through LAS (Vegas), Colorado, the Plains, and the Midwest before arriving on the JFK arrival corridor. An airway can only be revised from a point that lies on it: "If the revise waypoint, or the ending waypoint, does not belong to the entered airway, the system displays AWY/WPT MISMATCH" (FCOM DSC-22_20-30-10-15). The Catalina departure ends at SXC, which is not on J146, so the plan reaches the airway at DAG first. A waypoint typed onto the flight plan leaves a discontinuity after it — the Airbus FCOM says a directly inserted waypoint "creates a discontinuity between the new waypoint and the previous one" — because the FMGS will not assume the route carries on from DAG. Clearing it with CLR is you telling it that it does. The AIRWAYS page then inserts the fixes from DAG to JFK.
Click LSK on the KJFK waypoint to open LAT REV, then 1R to open ARRIVAL. Pick an approach from the list that opens, then CAMRN, then 6R to insert.
CAMRN is the J-route arrival into KJFK from the south and west, terminating at the JFK 31 ILS feeder. Real flights from the west almost always arrive via CAMRN; it's on the OFP for 90%+ of LAX→JFK routings. Choosing the approach first is the real Airbus order and it is not ceremony: the approach fixes the runway, and the runway decides which branch of the arrival you actually fly. INSERT then completes the route programming — the FMS has a full plan from the KLAX gate to a KJFK runway, final approach included.

What to take away

A transcon chains everything: INIT, SID, airway, STAR.
Long airways are where the LAT REV → AIRWAYS path really earns its keep.
An airway is revised from a point that lies on it — otherwise AWY/WPT MISMATCH.
Arrival constraints shape the descent path — load them before you need them.
More time to program is not an excuse to skip the cross-check; it is the opportunity to do it.

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