ATC Radio Sim: Voice Control

ATC Radio Sim puts you in the seat of an approach and departure controller, working live radar traffic with your voice.

Every shift is different. The traffic is generated rather than scripted, so arrivals do not turn up in a rehearsed order and no two sessions play out the same way.

Key the mic and say it: "Lufthansa four zero one, descend and maintain five thousand, cleared ILS runway two five right." There are no menus and no list of commands to pick from. The sim works out what you said, the pilot reads it back, and the aircraft flies it. The pilots think for themselves too. They do what you tell them, question a clearance that does not add up, and ask you to say again when they did not catch it.

Then, while you are busy stacking arrivals onto the glideslope, the frequency goes quiet for a second: "Pan pan, pan pan, passenger with a suspected heart attack, request priority." Now one aircraft needs the shortest track to the runway and everything else has to be re-sequenced around it. You are scored on how quickly you sort it out. Minimum fuel, fuel emergencies and medical diversions all arrive the same way, unannounced, in the middle of everything else.

What you work:

- Arrivals and departures on approach radar
- Headings, altitudes, speeds, holds, ILS intercepts and vectors to final
- Sequencing, runway changes, handoffs and emergencies
- Two airports, including San Francisco International
- Three difficulty levels, and shifts from 15 minutes to endless

Each airport comes with its approach plate, laid out the way a real one is: the procedure, the minima, the fixes and the plan view. Tap anything on it and it gets explained.

The whole game is built on FAA Order JO 7110.65, and the order ships inside the app. Ask how close two aircraft are allowed to get and the handbook opens the separation rule itself. Every transmission follows standard phraseology, yours and the pilots' alike, so what you hear on the frequency is what you would hear on a real one.

That is a real learning curve, and it is meant to be. Ground school starts at the phonetic alphabet and works up through callsigns, readbacks and the rest. An eleven-shift course takes you from your first transmission to a busy final. The handbook is there whenever you want the rule behind an instruction you just gave.

Stay with it and something unexpected happens. Live ATC recordings stop sounding like noise, and you start hearing the clearances inside them.

Voice is the main instrument, not the only one. There is a touch command board for headings, altitudes and speeds, and you can type any transmission instead of speaking it.

No ads, and no account to create.

Recent changes:
New: ATC Approach & Arrival Training, a nine-chapter handbook from what ATC is to vectoring, sequencing and the days it does not go to plan. Voiced radio examples, diagrams, a 49-term glossary, and section chips that open the governing FAA passage.

- Full approach clearances: position, turn, altitude, clearance
- "Reduce speed to" and "until established on the localizer" now grade as standard
- Arrival names follow US STAR conventions
- Accuracy pass over the whole curriculum