ATC Runway assignments

[Honus]

I'm using the X-wind runway system at EHAM with all runways active. Today I notice that ATC seems to assign runways directly opposite of would be assigned in the real world. The wind is 212 @ 12, yet ATC assigns to "1" runway, plus rwy 6 up through runway 9. Would the correct assignment be the "18's" though 27 to head more into the wind. Is ATC confused because of the x-wind runway configuration?

[ReggieF5421]

Yes.

The X-Wind system makes the direction of all runways relative to the winds a non-factor except for the one controlling runway.

It is very common with X-Wind to have tailwinds or crosswinds on most runways.

Though big airports like EHAM very seldom turn the airport for winds under 20-25 knots. At winds lighter than that, they use the preferred configuration for the time of day and noise restrictions.

EHAM is also made more difficult to come close to real world usage due to the distance between runways and the variety of headings of those runways - you will see a very customized runway usage in the real world which FS cannot duplicate.

If you want to see the best way EHAM can be made to work - find Jim Vile's EHAM package available on Avsim - eham_ils_jv.zip, or use his Approach file to make the runways work better is you must use an AFCAD other than Jim's - eham__app__3rd.zip