KENNEDY APPROACH ---------------- OBJECT: To control all aircraft in your sector safely during your shift. The shift usually lasts between 15 and 20 minutes. If you are successful, you will be promoted to the next GS (Govt. Service pay) level. Maximum level is GS-13, in which case you are merely given another shift as a reward. CONTROLS: JOYSTICK - used to select airborne aircraft, then give ATC clearance in form of heading and altitude. Forward and aft commands climb and descent, left and right indicate direction of turn. An arrow at the aircraft symbol will indicate command heading. Clearance (text) will appear on command line at upper part of screen. Fire button actually issues command. KEYBOARD - A-Z keys to select either airborne aircraft or aircraft ready for takeoff. Keys are only way to select flight number of takeoff aircraft. PROCEDURE: Start at level 1 for familiarization, it gets tough in a hurry at higher levels. Aircraft maneuver at rate of 45 degree turn per mile (each dot represents 1 mile). They also climb or descend at 1000 ft/mile. You must keep aircraft at the same altitude separated by at least 3 miles (dots). If closer than 3 miles from each other, you must keep at least 1000 feet separation. Inbound aircraft appear at handoff points at 5000 ft. altitude. You must vector departing or enroute aircraft to departure handoff point at 4000' when they exit your sector. Aircraft must be cleared to land (0' altitude) at their destination airport, either when on final approach (straight-in to runway) or during a turn to final approach, so as to have enough time/distance to reach 0' before reaching the runway (halfway point on runway). You can clear an aircraft to land from 12 miles away if you wish, as long as he is at least 3 miles behind the plane in front of him. If an aircraft at 5000' is 4 miles from runway, it would not have enough distance to reach the ground before reaching the runway and would have to be vectored away from final approach to have enough time to descend. FLIGHT INFORMATION: Flight Identification is by letter, starting with A and continuing to Z and starting over with A, etc. The ID is the top row of the flight strip at the top of screen. Reading vertically in order are the ID, Departure point, Destination point, Altitude (* denotes on ground): ID: ABCDE ORIG: FDCTF DEST: LDFFE ALT: **55* In the above example, Flights A and E are at FTW (Fort Worth), awaiting takeoff clearance to LAX (Los Angeles) and ELP (El Paso) respectively. B is at DAL (Dallas, Love Field) for a local flight terminating at DAL. (These local flights are light aircraft that travel at half the speed of regular airline flights, so plan accordingly). Flight C is arriving from CHIago, destination FTW, D is arriving from Tampa, both are at 5000' and must be descended and vectored to final approach at FTW. In this case, I would first hit key E and issue a command to CLIMB 4000 FT, TURN LEFT 225, and press FIRE. Then select B and command CLIMB 2000 FT, TURN LEFT 270. Hit key C and HEADING 180, DESCEND 3000 FT (so as not to interfere with B, who is climbing out of DAL below him. I am going to bring D in from Tampa to follow C from Chicago so I will tell D to DESCEND 4000, HEADING 315 (continue same heading, 1000 feet above the Chicago flight). After E has passed 1000' and turned left toward ELP, I can then hit A to CLIMB 4000 FT, HEADING 270. Since E will be 3 miles south of A's course before he reaches 4000', then A will have no conflict and can continue climbing to 4000' and both will depart your sector without any further commands. Had you departed A before E, then if they only had 1 mile separation, there could be a conflict when A reached 4000', E would still be within 3 miles of him when he climbed through 3000' to 4000'. If you have 2 aircraft to depart, one straight ahead and one turning, always try to release the turning aircraft first, to avoid this conflict. You can then usually climb them both to 4000', but be careful if they can only go to a lower altitude, you will probably have to stagger their altitude anyway, until they get the necessary 3 miles lateral separation. Once C reaches the point where he can fly diagonally (heading 225) to the end of the runway at FTW, you can turn him to that heading and descend him to 1000'. Then descend D to 2000' if he is going to be within 3 miles of C when he reaches final approach. Similar aircraft travel at the same speed diagonally as they do vertically or horizontally on the sector screen, just count the dots (miles). When C is within 1 mile of final approach (the white row of dots extended from the runway, landing to the west), turn him to HEADING 270, CLEARED TO LAND (altitude 0'). C will turn to 270 when he hits the final approach dot and start descending immediately. Remember, aircraft only make turns at the dot markers in 45 degree increments, but they accept climb and descents immediately.) Do the same with D when he is within 1 mile of final. If he is 3 miles behind C, clear him also to land, if less than 3 mi., clear him to 1000' until C lands, then clear D to land. NOTE: If less than 3 miles between landing aircraft, you cannot issue takeoff clearance to any departing aircraft between the landing aircraft. If there is exactly 3 miles (no conflict alert buzzer), then you can be ready to issue the departure clearance by selecting the departure aircraft, setting up the commands, but wait until the landing aircraft disappears from the screen before pushing the FIRE button. It is usually better to space landing aircraft 3 miles apart, just so you don't hold up departures, however this is not always practical, especially on those shifts when arrivals outnumber departures by a large amount. In the earlier example we left flight B on a 270 heading (downwind leg) at Dallas, and at 2000'. When he is past the center of the runway, heading west, you can clear him to land with TURN LEFT HEADING 090, CLEARED TO LAND. He should turn on to final and land without further attention. Of course if any other departures from Dallas pop up, you will just have to wait until B is on the ground, because he will be within 3 miles the whole time, once he leaves downwind leg and starts the turn to final. If I get 2 consecutive light aircraft local flights, I usually alternate them with left and right patterns, so I can climb the second above the first when they get 3 miles lateral separation. This won't work at Washington, since the prohibited areas won't permit right hand traffic from departure. Occasionally an aircraft will declare "Emergency fuel, 8 minutes fuel remaining". You will have to watch the screen when you hear this, to identify the flashing flight number, in case you miss the voice ID, which I always do. If it is an arrival anyway, just vector him normally to his destination. However, if it is an enroute flight, not scheduled to land in your area, you must vector him to land at any of the airports in your area. After landing, his flight ID will remain on your flight strip, but change from black to yellow until he is refueled, then change back to black again, waiting for departure to his original destination. You should never hand-off flights that have declared an emergency, you should land them. You get bonus pay for handling emergencies. Occasionally at higher skill levels, you will start off with a thunderstorm, passing west to east across your area. Thunderstorms travel at half the speed of normal jet traffic, or exactly the same speed as light aircraft. Don't vector any aircraft into the thunderstorm or it will crash. You can judge speed by counting dots, i.e. thunderstorm will reach center of runway in 3 dots, jet landing opposite direction is 5 dots away, traveling twice the speed of storm, he should be able to land while storm is still half a mile out. No takeoffs while thunderstorm is overhead airport, but you can sneak out the back of the storm, sometimes a little before it actually clears out of the way. One benefit of thunderstorms, when you have one during your shift, you will have less aircraft to handle, so it is not as bad as you think. I prefer thunderstorms that do not pass directly over an airport, you can usually sneak around these and complete the shift with few problems. In the Washington terminal area, the Prohibited areas are to the north and east of the runway at National Airport. Departures must make immediate left turn, then may turn back to the right toward NY if necessary. Straight out departures from Washington will CRASH. Do not overfly the depicted buildings in that area. The SST aircraft arrive from PARis only, and depart to PARis. They are twice the speed of normal jet traffic and four times the speed of light aircraft. They only fly in the Kennedy Approach or Washington Approach airspace. They only takeoff/land at the primary airport (JFK or DUL) in each sector. (flashing yellow cones): The only function of these is for arriving aircraft. If you fail to issue a command to any arrival (aircraft scheduled to land at one of your airports), it will turn at the VORTAC and go into a holding pattern at 5000 feet. Just be aware of this, since it might fake you out if you counted on the aircraft continuing straight ahead. You can issue a command to continue on heading and altitude before it reaches the VORTAC and it will not go into the holding pattern. When controlling a string of several aircraft with staggered altitude, always change altitude of the first aircraft, then the second, etc. i.e. You have four aircraft close together for landing. First is cleared to land, next is at 1000, 3rd is at 2000, etc. When the first plane lands and disappears from screen, the aircraft at 1000 should be cleared to land, then one at 2000 can be cleared to 1000, 3000 to 2000, in that order. This will prevent any altitude conflict, since the altitude you clear a flight to maintain has just been vacated by the aircraft ahead of it. All aircraft climb and descend at the same rate as their speed. Light aircraft climb half as slow as jet aircraft. The light aircraft must indicate 1 1/2 bars (1500 feet) on the graphic before you can clear the jet behind it to takeoff and climb to 1000'. Same applies to Concord behind a regular jet. **** end of file ***