Airports › London Heathrow

London Heathrow Approach Control

EGLL / LHR — United Kingdom

London Heathrow (EGLL / LHR) is one of the real-world terminal areas you can control in the free ATC Radar Simulator. Its approach (APP) airspace — centred near 51°28.2'N 0°27.7'W in United Kingdom — is modelled with real runways, radio navaids and instrument procedures. As the approach controller you sequence arriving traffic onto the ILS approach, launch departures on their standard instrument departures, and keep every flight safely separated on the radar.

London Heathrow is one of the busiest two-runway airports on earth, running near its maximum movement rate for most of the day. Arrivals are famously fed through four holding stacks — Bovingdon, Lambourne, Biggin and Ockham — and continuous, tight sequencing onto the ILS is the signature challenge of the London TMA.

Heathrow squeezes roughly 1,300 daily movements out of just two parallel runways by running them in strict alternation — one lands, one departs, swapping roles mid-afternoon to share noise over west London. Arrivals descend from the four holding stacks into a single, relentless landing stream spaced to the minute; a missed slot at Heathrow ripples through the whole day.

Runways

Runways 09L, 27R, 09R, 27L are equipped with an ILS (Instrument Landing System) — a localizer for lateral guidance and a glideslope for the descent path down to the threshold. In the simulator you turn arrivals onto the extended centreline, clear them for the approach, and watch them capture the localizer and glideslope automatically.

Radio navaids

VOR/DME: LONBNNLAMBIGOCKCPTBPKDETMID

Standard arrivals (STARs)

Standard departures (SIDs)

The terminal airspace

• Transition level: FL60 — below it aircraft fly altitudes on the local QNH; at or above it they fly standard flight levels.
• Upper limit: FL130 — overflights cross the sector below this level.
• The terminal control area (TMA) extends roughly 55 NM around the field.
• Entry / exit fixes on the boundary: LONBNNLAMBIGOCKCPTBPKDETMID

How to control London Heathrow in the simulator

Heathrow is the purist’s radar challenge: hold at the stacks, then deliver an unbroken 2.5–3 NM landing stream with no gaps and no overshoots. Every arrival must roll onto the ILS perfectly spaced — there is no second runway to dump mistakes onto, and a single missed approach costs the rate you spent twenty minutes building.

Pick London Heathrow when you start a session, then double-click an aircraft's data block to assume it. Give it radar headings, climb or descend it to a level and control its speed to build an orderly stream toward the runway. Turn arrivals onto final, clear them for the ILS, and keep at least 3 NM and 1,000 ft between aircraft — the short-term conflict alert (STCA) warns you before a loss of separation. New to it? Read the guide to approach radar control and the ATC glossary first.