KENNEDY APPROACH
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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.

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