Originally Posted by
****su_Tonka
As far as I have seen the STAR is issued at about 150-200nm - whats the problem?
Care to elaborate? Are you suggesting ATC have some way of determining what has been inputted in to the FMC?
I think with CPDLC reports you can give the game away; ie it shows what is coming next; the "trial" for tailored arrivals was downlinking something about the FMC...
Re 'sharing the info'; the STAR is usually issued by the ATCs involved in the descent (the other ATCs have no idea what will be issued so don't), on some routes this is as close to destination at 80NM, but it is rare and the STAR issued is hardly a surprise...
Otherwise it's always by 110NM out usually a lot further out than that. The concept is you get STAR'd before Top of descent, although there are examples where this isn't possible. But that would be a secret.