Airport Hero Wiki
Airport Hero Wiki

Approach control is a control frequency channel in the AH Series. It is shown as blue on the ATC control panel.

Control[]

Approach controls all flights that are coming to the airport, as the name suggests. Its main task is to guide incoming flights to a runway for landing.

When a flight approaches the airport, the pilots will contact the ATC stating their current flight data, then the player can pick a runway for them to land on. Then ATC will reply to the cockpit with the runway and instructions on what to do. When the plane nears the airport, the player will need to hand them off to tower control quickly. That is their main function, but there are several other small tasks they perform that vary depending on the game.

Airport Hero Honolulu[]

In Airport Hero Honolulu, Approach's only job was to select a runway for incoming flights before handing them off to the tower. The player also had the option to hand the plane off to tower early (however they would not contact the airport until the flight was 6 miles away from the airport).

Airport Hero Narita[]

In Airport Hero Narita, Approach control had a similar job, but there was now more the player could do on approach. The flight would come in as normal, but the transcript was slightly different. After a runway was chosen, the player had the option to have the plane deviate slightly from its course. This option was very useful for ensuring two flights on the same course would not run into each other (this was the first game where planes moved at different speeds, for example, a 737 would travel faster than a 767). There was also the option to reduce the aircraft's speed for a smoother landing.

When dealing with emergency landings (In Narita there was only one possible scenario), the incoming flight would quickly radio the tower calling "Mayday", and the ATC would exchange with the crew to guide the flight to a quick and safe landing.

Airport Hero Osaka-KIX[]

In Airport Hero Osaka-KIX, more use was made out of approach control. AH Kansai was the first game to have defined approach vectors, so this changed the interactions between the flight and the ATC. The options to detour and reduce speed were removed and instead replaced with altitude options. Incoming planes could now be at high, mid, or low altitude. For beginners, this feature seemed useless. For those who saw stage 4 will understand how critical this could be. A 747 moves faster than most other planes in the game, so if there were a 767 with a 747 behind it, both at the high level, the 747 would eventually collide with the 767. The solution would be to lower the 767 to the mid or low level so the 747 could pass over it.

In this game, there were also more possible emergency scenarios, so the ATC control was different. The most notable one is when a plane squawks 7600 (a radio failure). The ATC will try to contact the flight, but radio will be cut and the flight will be forced to land independently.