I wasn’t sure where to post this, so I put it in General. Sorry if it doesn’t belong here.
So I’m still fairly new to IF, I have been playing for about a few months now on and off. When I do fly, I use the A320/321 and the A319. I mainly fly EasyJet routes, I just like them for some reason. Last night’s flight from Gatwick to Charles de Gaulle airport and I used a fair amount of waypoints. The only active runways were in the opposite direction of where I wanted to go, so I had to use a bit of waypoints to turn, you know? But my question is: How many waypoints should I use? Or how much is too much?
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Welcome to the community!
It doesn’t really matter too much. You don’t always need waypoints if you’re simply on the other side of the runway. Just enter a traffic pattern to land and you’re good! (Assuming this is without ATC)
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Firstly, the color of the runway doesn’t necessarily determine the active runway. Follow the flow of traffic if there is one.
In cases such as these where there isn’t a straight in approach, there is hope! As @anon24319801 said, you can enter the traffic pattern for the runways in use. Here’s a picture of a basic pattern:
Source
Basically, enter a left/right downwind for whichever runway, which is the runway heading you’re trying to land on +180°. Next, make a 90° turn to base, then make a 60° turn before intercepting the localizer (the centerline).
This is actually a much more realistic method than just setting waypoints to line yourself up. It’s especially good to know when you fly on expert and ATC tells you to go to a runway that you weren’t expecting.
Some STARs (Standard Terminal Arrival Route) include waypoints that will set you up on a downwind, so you can use those (which I’d recommend most, since its the most realistic thing to do).
If you have any other questions, feel free to ask!
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First off, welcome to the community!
There’s a large range of what I consider “acceptable”. Pilots who only put a few waypoints are probably not using enough, but if you have an absolute abundance of waypoints you’re probably using more than you need to. I always use fpltoif.com which gives you FPLs from real life. Happy flying!
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Hello and welcome the Community!
As Bravo Charlie said there are never to many way points in a flight plan. What I do if I am coming from a opposite direction is to just do input way points that go around the airport and then turn into the ILS path for the specific runway
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