DKS ATC: Airfield & Carrier

ATC mode is for tower, approach and carrier controllers. Press Alt+M (or the ATC side of the top-bar switch) and DKS ATC turns from the air picture to the airfield: the right dock swaps to the Airfield and Approach panels, the Strips open along the bottom, and runways, centerlines, range rings, navaids and fixes come on. Each mode remembers its own layout, so switching back to GCI restores yours.

The focused airfield

Everything in ATC mode is about one airfield or carrier at a time, shown in the top bar.

• Automatic. DKS ATC follows your traffic: the airfield with the most of your side's aircraft (flying or parked) within 10 NM (switching only when another has half as many again), or with none anywhere the nearest airfield to your view, your side's first.
• Pick one in the top-bar picker or with Focus this airfield (ATC) in an airfield's right-click menu. Your pick wins until you set it back to automatic, and the scope centers on the field.
• Pick a carrier in the same picker: your side's carriers are listed first. The scope centers on the ship, and the docks switch to the carrier's panels: the Carrier board in place of the strips, the Carrier PAR in place of the Airfield or Approach panel. Picking an airfield switches them back. Automatic only ever picks an airfield.
• The Airfield panel shows the field's runways, the runway in use with headwind and crosswind, the wind, QFE and frequencies when the feed has them, and who owns it.
• Minimum altitudes in the same panel: the field's MSA within 25 NM (one value, or four with Quadrants on, by magnetic bearing), and the MVA and Grid MORA at the field. Turn on the MVA, Grid MORA and MSA layers to see them on the scope.

Runway in use

DKS ATC picks the runway end your traffic should use and shows why:

1. Your pick, when you made one (R cycles through each runway end and back to automatic).
2. Otherwise the end with the most headwind, when the feed reports field wind (DKS/2 or Olympus) of 5 kt or more. A wind under 5 kt is calm, as in FAA JO 7110.65 3-5-1. The end in use stays until its tailwind passes 5 kt or its crosswind passes 15 kt (the ICAO PANS-ATM limits), so a gusting crosswind does not flip it. Against a crossing runway, the other runway must also give 3 kt more headwind.
3. Otherwise the end the traffic is using: the end most aircraft are established on final for, else the end of the latest takeoff or landing. Parallel runways count as one flow.
4. Otherwise the longest runway.

The runway in use and its final approach are drawn on the scope, and in ATC mode each runway gets an extended centerline 10 NM out with a tick every mile.

Flight strips

The Strips board (bottom) holds a strip for every own-side, neutral and unknown aircraft within 40 NM of the field, in three columns:

• Takeoffs and landings are taken from the feed's events when it has them, and otherwise detected from height above the field: on the ground below 10 m, airborne above 30 m, held for 2 seconds so a bounce is one landing. A landing is timed at main-gear contact, the same rule the debrief's grader uses. After a bounce it is timed at the first touch.
• A float is not a landing. An aircraft that never comes lower than 5 m and climbs away is a low approach, with no landing and no takeoff. A helicopter is down only once it comes to rest, so a hover taxi is not a landing.
• A landing stays an arrival. Only a takeoff makes a departure, so a jet on its rollout never shows as a departure.
• Final means within 10 NM of touchdown, within 10° of the centerline, below an 8° approach angle and pointing within 30° of the landing course.
• Go-around. An arrival that climbs away after being on final below 500 ft is a go-around. A climb off a higher final, such as an overhead break, is not.
• Arrival or overflight. An overflight becomes an arrival when it joins final, lands, or closes on the field for 10 seconds while below 12,000 ft or descending. An arrival that opens away for 90 seconds outside 10 NM becomes an overflight.
• Coming back. A departure that has been more than 3 NM from the field turns into an arrival by the same rules, so a local sortie is sequenced and goes final.
• Sequence and spacing. Arrivals are sequenced by ETA, or by the order you drag them into. Each shows the spacing to the arrival ahead, amber within 1 NM of the minimum and red below it (default minimum 3 NM).
• Hostile and bogey tracks get no strips unless you add them. Aircraft working a carrier belong to the carrier, not the field.
• Keys. S opens the strips with the keyboard on them; the arrow keys move between strips, Alt+↑/↓ resequences, Enter centers on the aircraft, and the context-menu key opens its menu. Each strip's Strip › menu moves it to a column, puts it back to automatic, hides it, or watches it on the approach window. Every change is undoable.
• Notes. Each strip has four short cells under its data (ALT, HDG, SPD, NOTE as hints; type anything up to eight characters, such as an assigned altitude or "RV"). Enter or clicking away saves a cell, Esc puts back what was there.
• Add strip. Type a callsign in Add strip in the board's header and press Enter to give an aircraft the board did not list (outside 40 NM, working a carrier, a hostile) a strip. It stays, marked +, wherever the aircraft flies, until Remove the added strip in its menu. An aircraft's own menu has Add a strip too.
• Squawk. A strip shows the aircraft's assigned code, amber when its transponder reports a different one. Assign it from the strip's Squawk › menu (see Assigned squawks).

When you're in a shared session with other controllers, the strip board is shared: moving a strip to another column, hiding it, dragging the arrival order, the notes and added strips show on everyone's board, and the board's header says Shared. Ctrl+Z only undoes your own changes, never another controller's. The runway in use stays your own pick.

Passing a strip

Hand a strip to another controller the way a paper strip goes across the cab: Strip › Send strip to GROUND lists every position online in the session, including each controller's consolidated positions and your own other positions.

• The receiving controller's strip gets a thick border and FROM TOWER with a ✓ button, and a note pops up with Accept. It stays highlighted until they accept it.
• Your copy shows → GROUND, with a ✓ once they accept. Recall the strip takes it back.
• Sending to one of your own positions needs no acceptance.
• Strips sent to you in the Airfield panel's Strips settings chooses what happens when one arrives: Highlight until accepted (the default), Accept automatically, or Ignore.

Approach window (PAR)

The Approach panel is a precision approach radar for the runway in use: one display for elevation (above or below the glidepath) and one for azimuth (left or right of the centerline), with the aircraft's track on both and the PAR sentence underneath, for example "Slightly above glidepath, on course, 3 miles from touchdown." Watch a particular aircraft on it from its strip's menu.

• Touchdown is where the glidepath meets the runway, as on a real PAR. It is about 300 m past the threshold on a 3° path. Ranges count from there, to the nearest half mile.
• Over the threshold the call is "Over landing threshold" and the course words.
• The window shows aircraft down to 1° above the horizon, whatever the glideslope, so a jet dragging in low stays on it.
• An unknown field elevation is flagged rather than guessed. Heights are then above sea level, and the strips judge final from the centerline alone.

The "slightly" and "well" bands (0.2° and 0.5° on the glidepath, 0.5° and 1.5° on course) are DKS ATC's own; the FAA gives the words but not the angles.

Glideslope. Each runway end uses a 3° glideslope unless you set another in the panel's GS picker, from 2.0° to 6.0° in half-degree steps. The setting is kept per runway end in this browser, applies to the strips' final-approach check too, and Ctrl+Z undoes it.

ETA in data blocks (Airfield panel) adds each arrival's ETA to its data block.

Ground view

The ground view is the airfield's surface, like a tower's ASDE-X display. Press G, click the ground view button beside the airfield picker, or choose Ground view in an airfield's right-click menu. The scope switches to ATC mode, makes that field the focused airfield and zooms to it; you can zoom in until about 0.1 NM fills the scope. Press G again (or the button) to go back.

• Pavement. Runways and taxiways are filled to their real width, taken from DCS's own taxiway network, so the field looks like the field. In the normal ATC scope the pavement shows too, more quietly, once you zoom in (Map menu: Pavement, under Airfields).
• Runways are outlined with their numbers painted at each end. A runway with an aircraft on it is drawn in orange, in the normal ATC scope too.
• Parking stands and helipads show as rings (an H for a helipad), numbered once you zoom in, where the airfield data has them (Map menu: Parking stands).
• Taxiway names show in yellow (Map menu: Taxiway names) until you zoom well out, at about a hundred fields across the theaters. Nellis, McCarran, Henderson, North Las Vegas, Tonopah, Tonopah Test Range and Laughlin in Nevada, and Incirlik and Beirut in Syria, take them from the aerodrome charts DCS ships in the kneeboard. Elsewhere they come from OpenStreetMap, credited at the bottom of the scope, and only where the real field matches the DCS layout: a taxiway DCS doesn't model gets no name, and fields whose runways differ from DCS's (many Caucasus and Cold War fields) have none.
• Every aircraft on the field is shown, parked ones included, with a ground data block: callsign and type, then what it is doing and its ground speed. The states are PARK, TAXI, HOLD (stopped at a runway holding point, or lined up waiting), ROLL (takeoff roll) and LDG (landing rollout). Arrivals keep their ETA.
• Your own filter and data-block layout come back when you leave the ground view. You can also pick the Ground filter preset and the Ground data-block layout yourself in the normal scope.
• Picking another airfield in the top bar moves the ground view there. Switching to GCI closes it.
• The address bar keeps the view, so a reload or a copied link opens the same airfield's ground view.
• In its own window: choose Ground view in a new window in an airfield's right-click menu, or "Open the ground view in a new window" in Ctrl+K, to keep the ground view on a second monitor beside the main scope. Opening it makes that field the focused airfield in the main window too.

Conflict and terrain alerts

Four alerts are on in ATC mode only:

• CA (conflict): two aircraft are, or within 60 seconds will be, inside 3 NM and 1,000 ft of each other at the same moment. Wingmen and tanker pairs holding station are exempt.
• MCI (intruder): a friendly and a neutral or unknown aircraft in conflict.
• MSAW: a friendly is below 500 ft above the terrain or a tall obstacle, or will be below 300 ft within 60 seconds on its present course. MSAW needs terrain data for the theater; where there is none it stays silent, and the Log's settings say so.
• RWY (runway incursion): an aircraft is on the runway in use at your focused airfield while another is on short final for it (inside 2 NM; change it in the Log's settings) or rolling for takeoff toward it. Two aircraft of one flight taking off or landing together are exempt.

Another, Below MVA, is an advisory you can switch on in the Log's settings: a friendly outside a field's zone and final that is under the MVA of its sector.

Near a field, CA stays quiet between two aircraft in its 5 NM zone, and between two on the same final in the same direction. Head-on traffic over a field still alerts. MSAW never switches off near a field. Its clearance drops along a slope under the glidepath, reaching zero 1 NM from the field. A jet on a normal approach or in the pattern stays quiet. A jet dragging in low at 4 NM alerts. See Alerts & Squawks.

Carrier

When the feed has one of your side's aircraft carriers, the Carrier board opens in the bottom dock, and the Carrier PAR, the Deck view and the LSO cam in the right dock, in either mode. A CV chip in the top bar shows the carrier at a glance.

With more than one carrier, they all work the carrier you picked in the top bar (see The focused airfield), or the first one while an airfield is focused. The carrier picker in the board, Deck and LSO headers makes the same choice.

Case, BRC and final bearing

• Case. Set Case I, II or III in the board's header. DKS ATC suggests one from the weather (Case I needs 3,000 ft and 5 NM, Case II 1,000 ft) or the night, but never applies it by itself. The ceiling is the lowest broken or overcast layer. Few and scattered cloud is no ceiling, including a scattered DCS cloud preset.
• BRC is the ship's course over the ground. NATOPS defines it as the ship's heading; in DCS the two agree to within a fraction of a degree. The first time the carrier is seen its course is published as the BRC; after that you publish a new one from the header. If the ship holds 5° or more off the published BRC for 20 seconds, the board raises BRC drift; a ship in a turn reads TURNING.
• Final bearing is the BRC plus the deck angle. It is drawn astern of the ship with DME ticks (Shift+F); the Case II and III marshal radial is its reciprocal.
• Which north. The BRC, the final bearing and each row's radial follow your Bearings setting: magnetic by default, or grid or true. Each one carries its M, G or T suffix. See Which north.
• With a DKS/2 feed the header also shows TACAN, ICLS, Link 4 and the wind over the deck.

Marshal stack and EATs

• M puts the selected aircraft on top of the marshal stack, or takes it off.
• Each slot shows its EAT (expected approach time), a countdown, and its angels and DME: Case II and III slots stack from angels 6 on the marshal radial, Case I overhead from 2,000 ft.
• From the board, push the whole stack back, add bolter spacing, swap two slots or move one by a minute.
• On a squadron server the stack is the same one Realview shows, shared by everyone controlling that server; on any other source it lives in your browser.

The board

Rows are grouped Recovering, Marshal stack, Inbound, Recovered and Deck and other, each with its slot, state, DME, radial, altitude, ground speed, EAT and fuel.

• Marshal. A jet in your stack reads marshal until a minute before its EAT, wherever it is in its holding pattern. A jet you have not stacked reads marshal when it holds where the case puts the stack. In Case I that means overhead, 2,000 to 9,000 ft above the ship, within 6 NM, after it has turned at least 90°. A jet crossing the ship in a straight line does not read marshal.

• Approach. A jet reads approach in the pattern (inside 10 NM and 1,500 ft above the ship), on the Case II or III final bearing once it has started down, or when its EAT is due and it is closing. A jet flying away from the ship low and close is not on approach. A jet still level at its marshal altitude is holding, not approaching.

• Airborne. For four minutes after a launch, a jet reads airborne unless it turns back to the ship. It never reads marshal while it climbs out.

• Fuel is in thousands of pounds on a DKS/2 feed and in percent on Olympus; set a low-state threshold in the header.

• Passes. Traps, bolters and waveoffs are called as they happen, using the same rules as the squadron's LSO grading. A trap takes the aircraft off the stack (switch this off in the header). With the squadron's Live LSO set up, each jet's latest grade appears on its row.

• Alerts. Bolter, waveoff, BRC drift and fuel emergency show in the board's alert strip; click one to select and center the aircraft.

Carrier PAR

The Carrier PAR is the approach window laid on the deck: the landing line on the ship's heading, the glidepath from the deck's aim point, so a jet's approach reads the same way the LSO grader scores it. The glidepath is always the 3.5° basic angle. NATOPS raises it to 4.0° with high wind over the deck; the PAR does not.

Deck view

The Deck tab in the right dock draws the carrier from above, bow up, with every aircraft on or just over its deck where it is on the ship. Open it from the tab, the command palette (Carrier: show the deck) or an aircraft's right-click menu (Carrier → Show the carrier deck).

• The deck. On the Supercarrier hulls (CVN-71 to CVN-75) you see the flight deck as the game models it: the angled landing area with its four wires, the four catapults (numbered at the spot where a jet sits in tension), the four elevators and the island. Forrestal shows a plain deck outline and its landing line. Other carriers show only a ship marker.
• Aircraft. Each aircraft within 500 ft over the deck is a triangle pointing the way it faces on the ship, labeled as on the board. A filled triangle is on the deck; a hollow one is in the air over it, with its height in feet.
• The groove. Aircraft on short final, up to 1.5 NM behind the ramp, line up just aft of the stern with their range and height. The range is squeezed to fit, so it is not to scale. The footer names the closest. Turn the strip off with the landing button in the deck's toolbar.
• Moving around. Scroll to zoom, drag to pan, double-click (or the fit button) to fit the deck again. Click an aircraft to select it on the scope.

LSO cam

The LSO tab in the right dock is the debrief's PLAT camera for the carrier you're working: the view from the LSO platform up the glideslope, with the crosshair, and every jet in the groove flying toward you. Open it from the tab, the command palette (Carrier: show the LSO cam) or an aircraft's right-click menu (Carrier → Show the LSO cam), and pop it out to a second monitor with the dock's pop-out button.

• Which carriers. The Supercarriers (CVN-71, 72, 73 and 75) have a PLAT camera. With more than one carrier, pick which one at the top of the panel.
• Attitude. On a Tacview feed or recording each jet shows its real pitch and bank. On an Olympus feed they fly level.