When to contact approach at my destination airport if it's the only ATC online

[Gustav P Svensson]

Hello!

The thing that I've always struggled with during all my time at vatsim is when I should contact approach when it's the only controller online. Should I pre-plan which STAR to use or should I wait for them to give me clearance?

And how many miles away from the airport/last waypoint should I contact them? Is this info available in charts (in which case I haven't found it) or is it some common practice? Right now I try to guess which STAR they will want me to fly based on the ATIS and my last waypoint which works OK except for those airports that have multiple stars for the same waypoint. And I try to contact them ~10-20 miles before my last waypoint.

 

TLDR:
When should I contact Approach if it's the only controller online?
Should I pre-plan a STAR to use or wait for approach to tell me which one to use?

Best Regards
Gustav P Svensson

Edited May 31, 2022 at 06:38 PM by Gustav P Svensson

[Alistair Thomson]

21 hours ago, Gustav P Svensson said:

Right now I try to guess which STAR they will want me to fly based on the ATIS and my last waypoint which works OK except for those airports that have multiple stars for the same waypoint. And I try to contact them ~10-20 miles before my last waypoint.

That's a good plan. Often the ATIS has the info required and if you contact Approach before the start of the approach you will be doing the right thing.

There may be not much time to program the FMC if you get a late clearance but if it's all going pear-shaped you can request vectors :).

[Mike Teague]

if only approach is up i will call descending thru like FL200 or so if they dont give me a contact-me message first