SID & STAR: KPHX → KLAS

intermediate
📍 Route: KPHX → KLAS — SID + STAR practice⏱ ~5 minutes📊 5 steps🎓 Flight Plans & Routing

Your first real procedure practice: pick a departure out of Phoenix and an arrival into Las Vegas, from the trainer's real FAA procedure data.

What this scenario covers

A SID (standard instrument departure) and a STAR (standard terminal arrival route) are published procedures that connect an airport to the enroute structure. Rather than being cleared waypoint by waypoint out of a busy terminal area, you are cleared to fly a named procedure, and the FMGS knows all of its legs and constraints.

On the MCDU they are selected from the DEPARTURES and ARRIVAL pages, which are reached from the F-PLN page by revising the origin and destination respectively. Choosing one stitches its legs into the flight plan automatically — which is why the flight plan you had before is not the flight plan you have afterwards.

How it applies in flight ops

Phoenix to Las Vegas is a short desert hop flown constantly by US carriers, and it is a good example of why procedures exist: two busy terminal areas close together, with departures and arrivals that must not conflict. The published procedure is the pre-negotiated answer.

Crews normally load the expected procedure at the gate from the ATIS or the company flight plan, then change it if the clearance differs. Reloading a SID after a runway change is a routine, time-pressured task — worth being fast at.

Start this scenario

Open the SimTuts A320 MCDU trainer and select “SID & STAR: KPHX → KLAS” from the scenarios list to walk through it step-by-step on the simulated keypad.

Open trainer →

Step-by-step: SID & STAR: KPHX → KLAS

  1. Enter the route. Type KPHX/KLAS and press 1R.

    Phoenix to Las Vegas is one of the busiest short-haul routes in the southwest — Southwest runs it hourly. Short, but both ends have real published procedures, which makes it good first SID/STAR practice.

  2. Set the cruise level. Type 280 and press 6L.

    A leg this short is mostly climb and descent with almost no cruise. FL280 gives you a real top-of-descent without wasting fuel climbing higher than you can use.

  3. Open the departure. Press F-PLN, then press 1L on the KPHX row to open LAT REV.

    LAT REV at the origin airport is the ONLY place on the MCDU to pick a SID — the DEPARTURE prompt lives here. There is no dedicated departures key.

  4. Press 1L (<DEPARTURE). Pick the BUCKEYE SID — press 3L next to it — then 5R to INSERT.

    After INSERT, the SID waypoint (BXK, the Buckeye VORTAC) drops into the F-PLN after KPHX. This is Phoenix's real charted departure, from the same FAA 28-day NASR cycle airlines fly.

  5. Now the arrival. Press 4L on the KLAS row for LAT REV, then 1R (ARRIVAL>), pick a STAR, and 5R to INSERT.

    ARRIVAL> is 1R on the destination's LAT REV. Picking a STAR inserts Las Vegas's arrival waypoints before KLAS — a complete procedural skeleton from Phoenix's runway to Vegas's.

What to take away

  • DEPARTURES and ARRIVAL are reached by revising the origin and destination on F-PLN.
  • Selecting a procedure rewrites part of your flight plan — always re-check it afterwards.
  • Procedures carry their own altitude and speed constraints into the vertical profile.
  • A runway change at short notice means reloading the SID; practise it until it is quick.

The rest of Flight Plans & Routing

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