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Beijing Capital Approach Control

ZBAA / PEK — China

Beijing Capital (ZBAA / PEK) is one of the real-world terminal areas you can control in the free ATC Radar Simulator. Its approach (APP) airspace — centred near 40°4.6'N 116°35.8'E in China — 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.

Beijing Capital is one of Asia’s busiest airports, funnelling enormous domestic and international flows through its parallel runways. High volumes and long arrival streams define the Beijing approach picture.

Beijing Capital moves enormous volumes through three parallel runways under some of the most constrained airspace anywhere: large military reservations box in the corridors, so flows follow narrow, fixed routings with strict level caps. Since Daxing opened to the south the pressure has eased slightly, but Capital still runs wave after wave of dense domestic trunk traffic mixed with long-haul.

Runways

Runways 18L, 36R, 18R, 36L, 01, 19 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: PEKYVLRVMJRCD

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 60 NM around the field.
• Entry / exit fixes on the boundary: PEKYVLRTONILVMJRCD

How to control Beijing Capital in the simulator

Beijing feels like threading beads: the corridors are narrow, the level caps firm, and traffic arrives in long trains on the same STARs. In-trail speed control is your main tool — the parallel runways can take the rate if you deliver evenly spaced trains, and fall apart if you deliver clumps.

Pick Beijing Capital 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.