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Shanghai Pudong Approach Control

ZSPD / PVG — China

Shanghai Pudong (ZSPD / PVG) is one of the real-world terminal areas you can control in the free ATC Radar Simulator. Its approach (APP) airspace — centred near 31°8.6'N 121°48.3'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.

Shanghai Pudong is China’s principal international gateway and one of the busiest cargo airports on earth, built on reclaimed land along the East China Sea coast. Multiple parallel runways handle a relentless mix of trans-Pacific and European widebodies, regional Asian traffic and round-the-clock freighters, all inside the tightly managed airspace of the Yangtze River Delta.

Pudong shares the Shanghai terminal area with Hongqiao only 25 miles west, so the two airports’ arrival and departure streams are threaded past each other along fixed corridors with little room to improvise. Volume is immense and the flows are heavily structured; summer brings the added complication of typhoon season and convective weather rolling in off the sea, which can close corridors and compress everything that is still airborne.

Runways

Runways 17L, 35R, 17R, 35L, 16, 34 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: PUDON

Standard arrivals (STARs)

Standard departures (SIDs)

The terminal airspace

• Field elevation: 13 ft above sea level.
• Transition level: FL60 — below it aircraft fly altitudes on the local QNH; at or above it they fly standard flight levels.
• Upper limit: FL195 — 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: PUDONTOLBAREKSOLUMENKARVOMEXARSOVENDAXINNARLIVEKROHOKANJENPAQIMAORUGEN

How to control Shanghai Pudong in the simulator

Pudong is an exercise in sustained throughput: the arrival trains keep coming, so hold the streams evenly spaced with speed control rather than long vectors, and let the multiple parallels absorb the rate. Depart promptly and climb hard — the surrounding corridors are busy, and a slow departure quickly becomes a problem for the next arrival behind it.

Pick Shanghai Pudong 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.