Airports › Los Angeles

Los Angeles Approach Control

KLAX / LAX — United States

Los Angeles (KLAX / LAX) is one of the real-world terminal areas you can control in the free ATC Radar Simulator. Its approach (APP) airspace — centred near 33°56.6'N 118°24.5'W in United States — 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.

Los Angeles International runs four parallel runways in two pairs beside the Pacific, among the busiest airfields in the United States. Continuous arrival streams from across the Pacific and the Americas keep the LA basin radar relentlessly busy.

LAX runs two independent pairs of parallels either side of the terminals, classically landing on the outboards and departing the inboards, with the whole operation flipping to “over-ocean” eastbound flows late at night for noise. The SoCal airspace around it is among the busiest and most layered in the world, and the evening trans-Pacific departure bank sends a wall of heavies out over the water.

Runways

Runways 06L, 24R, 06R, 24L, 07L, 25R, 07R, 25L 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: LAX

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: LAXJJOELFROUNMIKIYMANBYHETITLAUERCUMGIVPFPL

How to control Los Angeles in the simulator

LAX is a rhythm machine: two synchronized finals that never stop, fed from the east while departures punch west over the ocean. The test is keeping both outboard finals identically spaced — SoCal will happily send you more the moment you look comfortable.

Pick Los Angeles 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.