The ATC Simulator handbook
ATC Approach & Tower Training
Eighteen chapters that take you from your first radio call to a full approach sector, and then up to the tower cab. Written for readers with no aviation background, and quoting the FAA controller manual wherever its own words are the rule.
- 01
ATC Basics
What air traffic control is for, which controller owns a flight at each stage of its trip, and the job you take on when you sit down as Bayview Approach.
5 sections
- 02
The Language of the Sky
How headings, knots, feet and flight levels are spoken and measured, and how to read the scope that turns those numbers into a traffic picture.
5 sections
- 03
Radio & Phraseology
How to speak on an ATC frequency: the phonetic alphabet, spoken numbers, callsigns, the shape of a call, and the readback and hearback loop.
7 sections
- 04
Understanding Arrivals
Where an arrival's plan comes from, what a STAR is and what its restrictions require, and how to read a flight's intent off the data block before you transmit.
6 sections
- 05
Controlling an Arrival
How to work one arrival from its first call on your frequency to a position on altitude, on speed and on a heading that sets up the turn onto final.
7 sections
- 06
Vectoring to Final
The pattern geometry behind vectors to the ILS, why the glideslope is intercepted from below, and the clearance that puts an arrival on final.
6 sections
- 07
Sequencing & Sharing the Sky
The three-mile and one-thousand-foot separation minima, how they become a runway sequence spaced with speed first, and how departures climb through it.
6 sections
- 08
When It Doesn't Go to Plan
What to do when an approach breaks off, a pilot says unable, an aircraft declares an emergency, the radio fails, or the wind changes the runway.
6 sections
- 09
The Training Ladder
The five-rung practice ladder that turns the rules of chapters one through eight into skill at the scope, from a first shift with one arrival to a full sector.
6 sections
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The tower chapters
10In the Cab
The tower seat, what local control owns, why the runway is the scarcest resource on the field, and how the strip board carries your plan.
5 sections
- 11
Getting Them Airborne
How the tower works the departure queue: line up and wait, a takeoff clearance with runway and wind in a fixed order, and cancelling a clearance.
6 sections
- 12
Getting Them Down
How the tower gets an arrival down: the decision window on final, a landing clearance you may issue early, and the exit that hands the flight to ground.
6 sections
- 13
When the Gap Closes
Go-arounds, rejected takeoffs, the runway incursion, and the ground radar display a tower falls back on when the view from the cab is not enough.
7 sections
Glossary
The phonetic alphabet, the number words and the radio vocabulary. It grows with the handbook.
Fly what you just read
ATC Simulator puts you in these two seats, Bayview Approach and Bayview Tower, with live traffic and pilots who fly what you say.
About ATC SimulatorATC procedures and phraseology are based on FAA Order JO 7110.65BB. This game is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or a product of the FAA, and is not for real-world training or operational use.