Question for Intl Arrival Procedure
 

Hi, first post here but I have a burning question that nobody can seem to find the answer for and I'd love to pick the brains of you guys flying internationally or in Asia.

I was on a trip to Shanghai and ran into a problem concerning arrival procedures. When I'm paging through Jepps for arrivals (outside the US), the larger airports seem to have a massive amount of published arrivals but no way to plan ahead of time what arrival I will be issued.

I'll cite a specific example (see attached image):

My cleared flight plan route was a jet airway ending at "AND" VOR to DADAT int to ZSPD airport. As we approached AND we asked, but were given no specific arrival procedure until 20 seconds before arriving at the VOR and then were cleared the 22A arrival. Some quick fingers on the FMS and activating the arrival got us where we needed to go, but my question finally is - is there a way to plan ahead of time what arrival you can expect? (nothing was on the atis regarding arrivals, only runway in use for landing) I was guessing the 24A since DADAT was in my cleared route but of course I was wrong at the last minute.

http://i30.photobucket.com/albums/c3.../zspdrwy16.jpg
I hope there is an obvious answer to someone, since these types of arrivals are new to me. Thanks in advance :)

You were right to assume 24A cause of DADAT. Not much else you can do about it. I've gone into PVG a few times and always got what I was expecting, but you need to be on your toes, I guess. The altimetry being in meters is a pain in the butt, too.

Don, Hijack ,where do you normally go on your trips.

I'm on reserve so hardly do international anymore. Lately I've been to Fresno, Portland, Louisville, Rockford, Des Moines, and Fresno.

I would agree with the above response. Your guess was based on what you saw on your flight plan/release. If you have a secondary flight plan function as part of your FMS system you could consider putting the other arrival/runway into it and then simply activating it if they spring the late change on you. A lot of folks would build the reciprocal runway in the secondary out of habit. Coming from the south, as you did on this arrival, if they did do a complete runway change and have to take you up north, you'd still have plenty of time to rebuild the arrival and runway.

First post here as well. I was doing some research (google) on another topic and came across your post. I figured I would sign up and offer some possible clues to your experience since I know the details of this day at ZSPD. :)

Looking at the time of your post I am guessing that you were flying with a 0803 database in cycle 0802 or 0803 effective date. Chinese authorities delayed the opening of Pudong runways 17 and 35 in the middle of the 0803 release. Because of this delay the new procedures that were to go into effect were no longer valid upon the 0803 effective date. Atleast not until March 25,2008. Notams were issued and charts updated back to the old procedures between March 13 to March 25th. The good thing about the charts is that they are usually reviewed to be updated every 15 days while the database is only every 28 days. Here is where we get the disconnect and confusion.

The Chinese ATC knew of this problem and had to guide clearance as they came in. Some Airlines issued internal notams to inform their pilots that the new procedure are not valid until later. The problem is that once the new effective date hits, the old procedures are not accessible in the database.

Anyway, sorry for the long write... I think it was this problem and the timing of your flight into this airport that caused the delay from ATC.

Cheers,

P.S. seems like an interesting site. I look forward to reading this forum.