Commands: Controlling Your Traffic

Select an aircraft and its command menu appears: a radial menu around the aircraft (or a command strip on smaller screens; both offer the same commands). Here is the full vocabulary.

Core commands

• Turn Left / Turn Right: set a heading on the compass. The aircraft turns the direction you commanded, even for turns past 180 degrees. The preview arc shows exactly the path it will fly.
• Change Altitude: climb or descend in 1,000 ft steps. Fixed wing aircraft have a 1,000 ft floor; helicopters can go down to 200 ft.
• Set Speed: a slider between the aircraft's minimum clean speed and its maximum. Slower aircraft are easier to sequence.
• Direct To: send the aircraft straight to any named waypoint or airport. Handy for transitions and for cutting corners.
• Hold: park an aircraft in a holding pattern at a fix. It circles until you give it something else to do.

Approach commands

These appear for aircraft in a position to come and land (and disappear once an aircraft is already committed to an automatic approach):

• Intercept LOC: point the aircraft at a runway's localizer, the extended centerline beam. Works within about 10 NM of the runway and within 45 degrees of the final approach course. The aircraft turns onto final by itself.
• Clear to Land: the landing clearance. Issue it to an aircraft established toward the runway and it flies the touchdown.
• Pattern: one tap sends the aircraft to fly a standard traffic pattern (downwind, base, final) for the nearest active runway, then land itself. The set-and-forget option.
• Approach: where an airport publishes instrument approaches, clear the aircraft for one and it flies the published legs down to the runway.
• Clearance (conditional clearance): real controller phrasing like "cross this fix at or below 5,000, then fly heading 270". The aircraft flies the restriction itself. Chain a crossing altitude, a speed, and a turn after the fix.

Some larger airspaces also have arrival procedures (STARs): those arrivals check in already flying a published route. Follow their progress on the data tag, and take over with vectors whenever you like. Any heading, Direct To, or intercept command overrides an automatic procedure, so you always have the last word.

Departures and the ground

• Clear for Takeoff: appears for aircraft holding short. They roll, rotate, and fly their departure.
• Ready for Departure: departures wait off the runway in a banner on the left until you release them, so they never block a runway you need for an arrival.

Special commands

• Hover (helicopters): stop and hold position in the air.
• Handoff (live traffic levels): transfer an outbound aircraft to the next controller once it is in the outer band of your airspace.

Emergencies exception

A radio failure aircraft (7600) accepts no commands at all: it flies its last clearance. Work everyone else around it. Every other emergency still takes your instructions and needs them quickly.