Chart types at a glance

Not every chart does the same job. A flight splits neatly into phases, and there is a chart type for each of them. If you know which chart answers which question, half the battle is won.

The airport seen from above: runways, taxiways, aprons, hot spots. You need it on the ground — taxi instructions only make sense with this chart in front of you.

A pre-cleared route that takes you from the runway to the enroute structure, e.g. "SULUS 5S". Some SIDs are flown on headings and vectors, others are fully navigable paths — the chart tells you which, plus the takeoff minimums per runway.

The "motorway map" of the sky: airways , waypoints, navaids and minimum enroute altitudes — the chart that keeps you clear of terrain and restricted airspace between airports.

The mirror image of a SID: it brings you from the enroute structure down to the vicinity of the airport. Named transitions feed one common route that ends at a fix feeding the approach — or where radar vectors take over.

The most detailed chart of the five: the final few miles down to the runway, with minima per aircraft category . This is the chart this site focuses on — Anatomy of an approach plate takes one apart section by section.

A typical IFR flight reads like a sentence: runway → SID → enroute → STAR → approach → runway. Each procedure "hands you over" to the next — a SID ends where the airway begins, a STAR ends at a fix feeding the approach or where radar vectors take over. The dispatch paperwork that holds this route is decoded in Reading an OFP .