ATC Simulator: Voice Control

You are the air traffic controller, and you run the shift by talking. ATC Simulator: Voice Control is an air traffic control simulator with two positions on one radio. On the approach radar you vector arrivals onto the ILS. In the 3D tower cab you clear them to land and get the departures away, with the runway outside the window. Speak the clearance. The pilot reads it back and flies it.

Key the mic and talk like a controller: "Seacliff four zero one, descend and maintain five thousand, cleared ILS runway two five right." There is no command list. The phraseology comes from FAA Order JO 7110.65, and the app teaches it, with a ground school, a handbook and guided lessons. The pilots query a clearance that makes no sense. Mumble, and you hear "say again". Up to five pilot voices come from your phone's speech engine through a radio filter.

Thirteen aircraft types move through the cab, from a Cessna 172 and a Dash 8 up to the 747 and the A380. One of them is an F-16. The gates are full when your shift starts. Jet bridges swing back and a tug pushes each departure off the gate. Ground crews unload and refuel the arrivals. San Francisco's terminals are laid out as they are at SFO. Play by day, dusk or night, or on your phone's clock.

Every shift gets its own weather. Rain runs down the cab glass and snow settles on the roofs. Landing rolls get longer on a wet runway. When the wind shifts you change the runways in use. In fog, arrivals go around at minimums and some divert. Each shift opens with a briefing: the runways in use and what to watch.

Emergencies are part of an ATC shift. A departure takes a bird strike on the climb-out and comes back under MAYDAY or PAN-PAN. An arrival on short final reports smoke in the cockpit, an engine failure or a hydraulic problem. On the approach frequency: "Pan pan, pan pan, passenger with a suspected heart attack, request priority." You clear the runway and send the fire trucks. The emergency lands first, and the score records how long it took. You set how often they happen, from off to frequent.

ON THE APPROACH RADAR

- Headings, altitudes, speeds and holds

- ILS intercepts, visual approaches, vectors to final and runway changes

- Handoffs, minimum fuel, fuel emergencies and medical priority

- An arrival ladder: order, miles to run and the gap ahead

IN THE TOWER CAB

- Line up and wait, takeoff and landing clearances, go-arounds

- Runway crossings are yours: "cross runway" and "hold short"

- Taxi by named taxiway, step by step, ground combined with tower on one frequency

- Flight strips you drag to set the departure order

- Ground radar for low visibility and a runway incursion alert

- "Stop, stop, stop" halts any aircraft on the field

Two airports ship with the simulator, one of them San Francisco International. Three difficulty levels. A shift runs as long as you keep working it.

GROUND SCHOOL

The phraseology is taken from FAA Order JO 7110.65, Air Traffic Control, and a copy of the order ships in the app. The handbook opens the paragraph behind any instruction you give. ATC ground school is eighteen chapters, from the phonetic alphabet to the emergency return, with voiced radio examples and a glossary. Then twenty-three guided lessons with a mentor voice, twelve on the scope and eleven in the cab.

The simulation, the weather, the emergencies, the scoring, the lessons, the handbook and the pilot voices all work without a connection. An internet connection adds the live world: cloud speech recognition for your clearances, and live, directed events in your shift. Without a connection, voice control uses your phone's own recognizer if it has an offline English speech pack. Touch commands always work.

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