Endless ATC instructions

or on PC via Steam or itch.io

updated: 30 Aug 2024 (see changelog)

✈ For users without any knowledge of ATC, there's a short beginner's guide.

✈ The full changelog of the game can be viewed here.

✈ To add your own airports to the full version of the game, read here.

✈ The free version of the android app, Endless ATC Lite, is available here.

Below are full instructions for the simulation game Endless ATC:

Top view and side view of a correct ILS approach. In this example, a plane at 2000 feet approaches runway 27 at a shallow angle of about 30 degrees. If ILS mode is enabled, the plane will capture the blue ILS path automatically, and land. Note that the altitude of the plane determines the required distance from the runway: the higher the plane is, the further away it needs to be from the runway. The blue circles indicate the required distance; make sure to intercept the glideslope 'from below'.

Don't intercept the ILS at a too steep angle, or from above the glideslope.

Aircraft labels, runways, and the ILS

These timelapses can give you an idea of giving vectors for an ILS approach.

• Sequence the randomly generated arrivals to the ILS (Instrument Landing System) of a landing runway. The runway is the thick blue line in the middle of the radar screen, and the ILS path is the thin blue line extending from the runway. Guide the planes to this blue line, far enough from the runway. In order to capture this ILS beam and land, a plane must comply to these conditions:
  
  1. the ILS mode of the plane is activated,
  2. the plane intercepts the ILS line at a shallow heading of 60 degrees or less with respect to the runway heading (in reality they use 30 degrees or less),
  3. the plane has to be descended low enough to intercept the glideslope; the blue circles mark the altitudes of 2000, 3000 and 4000 feet.
  The plane has to be flying on the localizer (the lateral ILS component) before it will capture the glideslope (the vertical component; the descent path of the ILS). Examples of correct ways to guide a plane to the ILS are displayed in-game by yellow arrows: fly planes via those arrows, with an altitude of 2000 feet and ILS mode enabled, so the plane will capture it correctly. Once a plane is on a correct intercept course to the ILS path, it will follow the ILS automatically to the runway.
• When a plane is established on the ILS, it will be handed over the tower and then you score some skill points. The amount of skill points you score per plane depends on your current skill score. You always get at least 0.1 skill points per plane handed over to the tower. The skill score represents how well you are managing the airspace and it also determines the number of planes you will have to control simultaneously, so a score of 8.4 will give you about 8 planes to control.
• If a plane is too high on the ILS (flying above the glideslope) it will eventually call 'missed approach'. ILS mode is then deactivated. Try a new line-up at a lower altitude, so it will capture the glideslope from below. If a plane is about to land on a runway that is still occupied by another plane, it will go around: it climbs to 2000 feet and ILS mode is deactivated. Give it new vectors to the ILS, now with more distance behind the leading plane.
• At the top left you see your current game score. This number is the maximum of what your skill value has been in the current game. So your score can only increase. Then there's also the high score: the highest game score you ever reached on your device (unless you cleared the app data).
• Departing aircraft determine their heading and speed themselves; they only require an instruction to climb to a higher altitude. This can be done, when it's safe, by just one click to select FL130. Other altitudes can be selected but keep in mind that eventually the plane has to continue the climb to FL130. Optionally, a heading can be given by disabling 'SID' mode temporary. When you disable SID, the climb altitude is also restricted to FL90. Make sure to activate SID mode at some point again and continue the climb so that the plane has climbed above FL90 before passing the boundary of the airspace. The airspace boundary is displayed as the outer circle (radius 30 NM, 30 nautical miles). For New York, departing planes fly on a heading initially, so you'll have to manually enable SID to clear planes to the departure fix.
• You can lose skill points when planes:
  1. fly too close to eachother (in general: overlapping circles and altitude difference  less than 1000 feet),
  2. divert (leave the airspace at the 30 NM boundary), also if they are departures but fly at or below FL90 when leaving the airspace,
  3. abort the approach (runway occupied, too high altitude etc.),
  4. are delayed (not landed within about 30 minutes)
• An aircraft label has the following lines of info:
1. callsign,
2. current altitude and selected altitude (in feet divided by 100),
3. ground speed (in knots), weight category (Light, medium [no tag],  Heavy or Super J), mode (ils/direct/hold).
4. destination (only if other than main airport)

• When a plane is not in your control, it has a smaller label of just two lines.
• When a plane wants your attention, it has a flashing blue ring, until you select it.
• You don't have to hand off (or hand on) planes from/to the tower or other controllers. To keep things simple, planes do this automatically. Handoffs are possible, but not necessary.
• You can drag from an aircraft to easily set its heading. When you then drag onto a beacon (grey circle) then the plane flies directly to that point and the DCT button illuminates. Directs can also be given by pressing the 'DCT' button: then it will snap to a beacon/VOR/locator closest to the selected heading. DCT is, like ILS, a mode that alters the heading of a plane automatically. If a plane reaches a beacon without further instructions, it will fly circles above it, in a holding pattern. It's best to avoid holding planes because it will cause delays and crowds the airspace. Longpressing DCT will 'HOLD' the plane at its current position. Some runways have a beacon (a locator) on the ILS path; planes can fly direct to it but won't enter a holding there, but continue ahead. You can also drag from a selected VOR beacon to set a heading on which the plane must fly after reaching the beacon. Departures fly to a randomly chosen beacon and then continue ahead.
• In some cases, the separation minima (1000ft/3NM) are reduced: planes may fly closer to each other when:
1. both planes are on a different ILS localizer ('LOC' status), so independent parallel approaches are possible,
2. one or both planes are under the minimum altitude (1600 feet),
3. two departures are on a divergent heading of 15 degrees or more,
4. just after a go-around you'll get a short amount of time to regain a safe separation.

• In general, don't let the 3 NM rings overlap when the altitude difference is less than 1000 feet.
  
• For parallel approaches, maintain a vertical separation of at least 1000 feet until both aircraft are established on the localizer. For example, join the localizer at 2000 feet for one runway, and 3000' for the other. When the planes then descend to the runway, rule 1 (as stated above) applies so no penalties are given, even if the rings overlap!
• Longpress ILS to enable the ILS* mode, which means the plane will cross one localizer and intercept the next one. This can come handy when parallel runways are in use and you want to guide some traffic to the other runway for better traffic distribution.
• The number of planes you have to control is about the same number as the skill level. When the score increases above certain levels, more runways become active.
• Planes with 'RD' in their label (4th line) need to land on the secondary airport which has only one runway (this runway also has RD in the name, actually meaning EHRD or Rotterdam Airport). Regular planes, so without the 'RD' tag, may not land on this destination but have to land on the main airport Amsterdam Schiphol. Landing on runway 06RD (the opposite direction) is not accounted for in the game (too close to the boundary), so only traffic via the northwest from/to RD is simulated. Note that the amount of traffic to RD is very low compared to the main airport. For London, the traffic rate to the alternate destinations (Gatwick, Luton and City) is a bit higher. If the airspace has altitude restricted areas, for example 30/RD, then planes must be at 3000 feet or above, with the exception of planes with an RD tag.



Plane with destination 'RD'

• The speed displayed at a plane's label is the ground speed, which is usually higher than the selected speed (indicated airspeed, IAS): it has an offset increasing with the altitude (due to air pressure). When you change the speed, the label temporary shows the new target IAS airspeed instead, in yellow.
• If there is wind enabled, the wind speed increases with altitude. It will also affect track heading and groundspeed.
• Expedite a plane's climb/descent (that is: increase its vertical speed) by doubleclicking on the altitude button when it's at its limit value.
• There are light (L), medium (no tag), heavy (H) and superheavy (J) weight planes. The heavy ones turn and climb/descend a bit slower, while their final approach speed is a bit higher.
• Due to wake turbulence, planes behind heavy planes need more distance than the general 3 NM circle. In this sim, wake turbulence separation only applies to planes on the localizer. The required distance depends on the plane category: if a medium plane flies behind a heavy, more distance is needed. There are 6 wake turbulence categories ('RECAT'), and an arc behind the plane will display the required safe distance to the trailing aircraft. If this limit is infringed by more than a mile, you risk a go-around.
• Planes are generated randomly, depending on the skill value you achieve. Runway usage is also randomly chosen at the beginning of a new game. Starting a new game resets the traffic but your high score and goals are saved. In the full version, you can start a new game by selecting the current airport.
• Planes below 3000 feet have the option to descend as low as 1600 feet to make shorter finals possible.
• Planes flying within a 15 nm circle from the field slow down to 220 knots (unless a speed instruction has been given earlier, in which case that speed is maintained till the localizer).
• Planes intercepting the ILS reduce to 200 knots. At 6 miles from the runway they reduce further to 160KT. And at 4 miles, they reduce to final approach speed. You can always reduce earlier if needed.
• Planes handed over to the tower may reduce speed further automatically, but only within 10 miles from touchdown while flying too close to a preceding plane.
• Departures increase their speed automatically unless the speed is set manually.
• Changes to an airplane are applied when pressing the OK button, or when the plane is deselected. Pressing the C button cancels the current changes, and pressing C again deselects the plane.
• There are 3 ways to play the game: normal, custom or scenario. In the 'traffic' menu you can choose one of them. By default, 'normal' mode is enabled.
• In scenario mode, your task is the guide (non-random) traffic to the runways without any mistakes, and sometimes also within a certain time-limit. See the traffic menu at EHAM to start the first scenario. When succeeding that challenge, the next scenario will be unlocked.
• By enabling custom traffic mode, the skill value can be either fixed to a certain level, or capped so won't increase too much while playing. This is a way to change the difficulty of the game, because the number of planes you have to control is equal to the skill value. This allows for a more relaxed gameplay, or allows you to keep the amount of traffic at a more realistic level. If you lower the skill below 4.0 then the airspace will be closed entirely. Closing the airspace is also possible by pressing the 'end game' button in the traffic menu.
• In custom traffic mode, you can also switch to flow mode to set a constant flow of planes per hour from/to the main airport. For example, set it at 30 and you'll get 30 planes per hour to the main airport. If can also set a varying flow rate and set a minimum and maximum; the flow rate then varies between those two values, which results in alternating inbound and outbound peaks every hour. There are also options to play a game without departures, or without traffic to secondary airports. To increase the number of active runways, go to the 'runways' menu.

  

  Flow varies when a minimum and maximum value is set.

• You can score goals by landing a certain number of planes in a correct way, like 10 planes without separation incidents, or 5 planes without any mistakes (go around/divert/delay/missed approach/separation incident), or just land 100 planes in one game. However, to make it not too easy, you cannot use custom traffic mode if you want to score goals/set high scores. If you've used custom traffic mode, you have to start a new game first. In the full version, click on the currently selected airport to restart with a new game. Or just click 'new game' in the traffic menu.
• To pause, press ESC or, on android, the back button.
• The game is automatically saved when you exit or pause the game. Next time you start the app, the game will reload. Savegames on android are stored at /Android/data/com.dirgtrats.endlessatc/files/ (accessible via USB file transfer).

Game settings

Most settings in the menu speak for themselves. There are also some hidden settings available:

• Press and hold the menu button to speed up the sim to 20x speed.
• In the display menu, longpressing ‘line’ will toggle curved heading lines, and longpressing ‘ring’ doubles the ring size. Longpressing ‘dark’ toggles high contrast mode, and longpressing 'text' clears the pause screen history. To move the control bar to the bottom of the screen, longpress the 'bar' button.
• The following keyboard commands are available to further fine-tune settings: “DELAY0” (set pilot delay in seconds), “SWEEP000” (set radar update interval in tenths of seconds), “HLINE00” (set heading line length in tenths of minutes), “SPEED00” (set simulation speed factor), “NOBAR” (remove side bar), “CURSOR” (draws bigger cursor on screen), “TIMELAPSE00” (saves images every x seconds into /img folder), “CLEARTRACKS” clears the pause screen history. If your device does not have a keyboard, you can press and hold the 'lock' button in the display menu to popup the software keyboard.
• The full version also has multiple airports to choose from, with altitude restrictions, and optional weather (wind, clouds, air pressure) and radar delay settings. You can even add your own airport files.

Frequently asked questions

Q: Runways 18C and 18R are too close to each other. How do I make good use of them without getting incidents?

A: The approaches can be done completely independent; the trick is to intercept the localizers at different altitudes and at a large distance from the field. Read instructions above for more detail.

Q: It gets way too busy, what can I do?

A: Enable 'custom' mode in the traffic menu. You can limit the amount of planes you have to control to a certain number, or set the number of planes per hour you want to handle.

Q: Could you add my favourite airport?

A: Perhaps more airports will be added in the future. But in the full version, it's now possible to create an airport yourself, by editing a text file. More info here.

Controls

Apart from clicking planes and buttons on the sidebar, the game has mouse and keyboard controls/shortcuts as well. Press F7 to view or edit the controls.

Mouse:

• Press left and right button at the same time to enable ILS mode
• Scroll the wheel to change altitude, press right button and scroll to change airspeed
• Click on the scrollweel for OK/ handover.

Keyboard:

• Type a callsign to select a plane (space to autocomplete), then type commands, separated by spaces, for example:
• A30 (to set altitude 3000')
• S170 (speed 170 knots)
• DPAM (direct to the point 'pam')
• T360 (after the point fly heading 360)
• I (cleared approach)
• HO (hold at current position)
• E (expedite climb/descent)
• F1-F2 changes simulation speed
• F3-F4 sets the heading line
• Tab selects a plane, with priority to flashing planes
• PageUp/Down for altitude, Arrow Up/Down for speed, Arrow Left/Right for heading, Insert for ILS and Enter to confirm.
• Type 'NOBAR' if you want to try and play the game without the sidebar.

Known issues

• If you experience bugs or crashes, please send a crash report and/or mail me to look for a solution.

Contact/feedback

Mail or leave a comment below.

About

This program contains free software licensed under a number of licenses, including the GNU Lesser General Public License. More info on this page.

Donation

Links

• www.startgridgames.com My homepage.
• www.flightradar24.com See how the professionals control the airspace IRL.
• www.liveatc.net It's fun to hear real life ATC communications while playing.
• www.skyvector.com Browse real life aeronautical maps.
• www.github.com Browse and download community-created custom airport files for Endless ATC.
• www.discord.com Community about creating and sharing custom airports for Endless ATC.

Changelog

v5.6 (20 June 2024):

• Updates to all 9 airports; more recent/detailed data, including more detailed coastlines, displaced thresholds, correction for magnetic variance. Note: when loading old savegames, go arounds may occur after updating due to small changes in runway location.
• Added color options to the Display menuw. Here you can toggle the color of things like labels, targets, runways, and more.
• The heading of departures can now be adjusted without having to manually disable SID mode first.
• Option to zoom towards the cursor instead of the center of the screen. See the controls menu (F7) to toggle the 'Zoom Relative' setting between 'Cursor' and 'Center of screen'.
• Previous sound setting is saved when switching sound on/off.
• Higher max rate of departures by having tighter margins to nearby traffic/clouds.
• Android: software keyboard can be toggled my longpressing 'Blog' in 'About.'
• For custom airports:
• Colored lines can be added to new [background] section at the end of the file.
• Visible part of circle of areas can be limited by headings using the 'drawdegrees' property.
• Lat/long coordinates can be given in simple decimal degrees (without needing letter suffixes) by setting 'decimaldegrees' to true.
• Added opional ils waypoint pronunciation.
• Added option to add more precise headings to the airlines list.
• Approach interception point is now relative to the (displaced) threshold instead of the beginning of the runway.
• See the example.txt on how to use these new features.
• Hotfix v5.6.1 (20 June) fixes a crash when changing the skill cap.
• Hotfix v5.6.2 (26 June):
• Fix for a compatibility issue regarding app routes (interception point correction for displaced thresholds only applied when adding 'NM' to the distance)
• Possible fix for dpi scaling issue.
• Small update v5.6.3 (30 Aug 2024):
• Corrected ILS pronunciation in readbacks.
• Improved callsign selection based on spawn location; the callsign selection is now less random but more based on the 'spawn directions' in the airline list of custom airports.
• Bug fix for occasional incorrect spawn altitude when multiple runways are in use.
• Bug fix for emergency planes being unable to select the runway fixes of alternate destinations.
• Emergency planes can now select higher speeds (above the usual 250KT limit).
• Bug fix for planes that could have both ILS and HOLD modes enabled at the same time, causing game instability.
• Slightly reduced the separation minima for departures just after takeoff; this should avoid incidents at custom airports with minimum altitudes close to the ground. At the default airports, the minimum altitude of at least 1500 feet avoids triggering of incidents anyway.
• Improved accuracy of zooming towards the cursor when using the scroll wheel to zoom (if relative zooming is enabled in the F7 menu).

v5.5 (16 Feb 2024):

• Added 3 new options to the 'Realism' menu: Pressure, Random weather, and Frequencies. By default all the 3 options are off, but if you want the gameplay to be more challenging and realistic, switch them on if you like. The 'delay' menu was renamed due to the addition of these extra options.
• The Random weather option automatically sets the weather (wind, and a small chance of clouds) when starting a new game. The weather can still be adjusted in the Weather menu.
• The Pressure option adds air pressure simulation (QNH/altimeter). By default it's set to off (like in earlier versions; pressure fixed at standard pressure), to keep things simple. When enabled, you can set the actual air pressure (at sea level) in the Weather menu. The air pressure mainly affects the height of the flight levels and the lowest usable flight level. It does not affect altitudes. To distinguish between altitudes and flight levels, an A or F is added to the label of planes, depending on the transition altitude (the highest altitude) at the airport you are playing.
• Locations with high transition altitudes (like in the USA) are not really affected by this pressure option, as the flight levels are way above the simulated airspace.
• In this sim, all altitudes above the 'transition altitude' are strictly converted to flight levels. When the transition altitude is very low (for example at EHAM: 3000 feet), this means that an altitude of 4000 feet is not available to select. To circumvent this game limitation, you may want to manually increase the transition altitude by 1000 feet, to make ILS approaches possible from 4000 feet. To do this, press the 'TA+' button to raise the transition altitude.
• The Frequency option can be enabled if you like more realistic handoff readbacks: the H/O button is replaced by a radio frequency button.
• Added customizable keyboard bindings, and mouse control customization. Press F7 to open the Controls menu (it can also be accessed via the About menu), and click on a function to change its binding. You can setup keys to your liking; you can even bind functions to the A-Z and 0-9 keys, which are by default used for Text Inputs (like 'A30' for altitude 3000). If you don't use Text Inputs to control planes, press F6 to disable Text Input, so you can use any key without conflicts. Some mouse controls can also be adjusted, for example the functionality of the scroll wheel in combination with mouse clicks. You can experiment with different control settings and may things go wrong, just press the Defaults button to restore all controls back to the default settings.
• Added 'speech rate' setting to the Sound menu. By default, the speech rate changes automatically based on the time multiplier and the number of planes, but now it can be set at a fixed rate.
• Simplified the Custom Traffic menu; it now has 4 buttons for all of the 4 custom traffic modes, so there's no need to toggle the 'skill' and 'flow' buttons.
• Updated runway names at Luton and Orly due to magnetic variation.
• Text input 'II' can be used as an alternative to longpressing the ILS or SID button.
• Custom airports: option to set the maximum climb rate per planetype.
• Hotfix v5.5.1 (17 Feb): fixed issue where Caps Lock or Num Lock interfered with keyboard shortcuts.
• Hotfix v5.5.2 (20 Feb): fixed issue where handoff readbacks where missing at custom airports, and fixed a game crash when switching airports in case the savegames were from a very old version.
• Hotfix 5.5.3 (21 Feb): fixed wind change at YSSY scenario causing storms over runway, fix stuck keys after alt+tabbing.
• Hotfix 5.5.4 (28 Feb): fixed issues when binding keys in the F7 menu, fixed incorrect initial flight level for departure routes.
• Update 5.5.5 (4 Apr 2024):
• Fixed issue where planes inbound secondary airports could not land after a go-around in case the runway configuration had changed to a takeoff-only config (for example planes inbound RD airport may now change destination to EHAM after going around).
• Blue plane messages now remain visible after a runway configuration change.
• Slightly reduced the climb rate of planes just after takeoff.
• Adjustments to the transition altitude/lowest flight level at USA airports, to make it closer to reality: 'transitionaltitude=18000' will be interpreted as 17000 to make FL180 available at high pressures, as it is in real life. Depending on air pressure, the lowest FL will increase in steps of 10 instead of 5. This adjustment only affects 'usa=true' airports with a transition altitude set at 18000 feet.
• Re-added the property 'transitionlevel', but only for compatibility with older airport files. This deprecated property was removed since v5.5 (as it became obsolete due to the addition of variable pressure), but now the property will be interpreted as 'transitionaltitude'. Newer airport files can better use either 'transitionaltitude' or 'transition' to avoid naming confusion.
• Fixed missing displaced threshold for secondary airports.
• Planes leaving an APP route obey the speed restrictions again.
• Update 5.5.6 (5 Apr 2024, full version only): fixed issue where the transition level at YSSY was incorrectly calculated.

v5.4 (15 Sept 2023):

• Added 'errors' option to simulate miscommunications and pilot errors.
• Added history of all plane tracks to the pause screen.
• Added 'closest distance' information after a separation incident has happened.
• A message is displayed in case save/load errors happen.
• Improved the hints for beginners.
• For custom airports:
• Departures following a route now continue on their heading at the end of the route, instead of flying outwards from the center of the airspace.
• Entrypoints are located a bit closer to the airspace when using a polygon-shaped boundary.
• Added 'strictspawn=false' property, which can be set to true if the planes should be spawned precisely at the entrypoints.
• Hotfix 5.4.1 (26 Sept 2023):
• Added hidden option to clear the plane tracks from the pause menu, by longpressing the 'text' button in the Display menu (or typing 'cleartracks'). Clearing tracks still happens automatically when resetting a game.
• Adjustments and bug fixes to the 'pilot error' function: fixed occasional 'say again' when deselecting a plane, and pilots now always make a call in case of miscommunication happens, this is to avoid confusion when a value changed silently.
• OK button text is blue when a plane made a call.
• Added hidden option to add QNH (altimeter) to the readbacks of planes that descend from a flight level to an altitude. It can be enabled by longpressing the 'readback' button in the Sound menu. In this sim, the QNH is a fixed value so this option affects readbacks only.
• For custom airports: small adjustment to the positioning of entrypoints, fix for possible incursions when using duplicate runways, random entrypoints will fly on a heading towards the center of the airspace instead of the first beacon (use strictspawn=false to avoid random headings altogether).
• Hotfix 5.4.2 (13 Oct 2023, for PC version only):
• Fixed Steam achievements.
• Fixed a couple of typos.
• Hotfix 5.4.3 (28 Nov 2023, demo version only): fixed crash when first plane landed.

v5.3.1 (3 May 2023):

• Added icons on the buttons in the 'main' menu.
• Clicking on the skill/wind/speed text at top of the screen now opens the corresponding menu, for quicker access to these settings.
• L and R heading buttons are highlighted in case a turn is bigger than 150 degrees instead of 180 degrees, to make it more clear in which direction the plane willl turn. The plus/minus icons are also bigger for better visibility.
• Yellow turn curve is less glitchy when turning towards a beacon.
• Blue subtext can wrap up to 4 lines to avoid text getting cut off.
• Fix for possible incorrect number of runways when reloading the game if the 'end game' button was used before.
• For the PC version: fix for possible incorrect game window position on startup in case dpi scaling is used in Windows. If the game still happens to open out of view, you can maximize it via the taskbar, and then drag the window to your preferred position.
• For custom airports: the tower is able to release a higher rate of departures in case SID routes are used, or if there are intersecting landing runways.

v5.3 (9 March 2023):

• Added menus to allow to change the simulation speed, runway config, and delay/sweep settings more conveniently (instead of hitting the buttons many times).
• New Speed menu, where you can increase the simulation speed in steps of 0.5x all the way up to 10x. Press Smooth button to switch to a higher 'physics rate' for smoother plane movements. This is mainly intended to reduce choppiness when playing at speeds higher than 1x, but it can also be used at 1x. The default setting 'smooth off' is good enough regardless of the speed setting, but 'smooth on' makes it simply look nicer. Press the Auto button to make the game automatically switch between 1x speed (when interacting with planes) and a higher speed (when idle).
• Runways menu allows you to more easily set the runway configuration. And when custom traffic is enabled, you can also increase (or decrease) the number of active runways, by changing the new 'Custom score' setting. In Normal traffic mode, the number of runways is still determined by the 'score', as in earlier versions).
• When pressing the Delay or Sweep buttons, a new menu opens where you can more easily change the radar sweep and pilot delay settings. In this menu you'll also find an Events toggle button. This Events setting determines the likelihood of random events (like incidents, returning planes, go-arounds). It can be set to low, high or off. In earlier versions, it was always set to 'low' under the hood.
• The control bar now automatically switches its position to the bottom of the screen when the window is resized to portrait dimensions. This keeps the radar screen as 'square' as possible, which is especially useful for small window sizes. To manually lock the control bar to the bottom of the screen (regardless of the window size), long-press the Bar button in the Display menu.
• Added screen rotation option (android). The game can now be played in portait mode!
• Planes now turn more realistically. Expect the radius of a turn of a fast-flying plane to be larger than in earlier versions. This is because planes now bank left/right no more than 30 degrees, which in turn limits the maximum turn rate in comparison to earlier versions. Before, the turn rate was constant (about 3 degrees per second), meaning turns at 200+ knots would require bank angles of over 30 degrees (and high g-forces), which is uncomfortable for the people onboard. So to improve realism, planes now roll to a maximum of 25 to 30 degrees, and therefore speed has a bigger impact on the turn radius.
• Android: savegames and locations are now stored at /Android/data/com.dirgtrats.endlessatc/files/ which is accessible to the user via USB connection. On the first run after updating, existing savegames are moved to the new path automatically.
• Changes regarding custom airports:
• Earlier speed reduction by the pilot for planes on the localizer, to avoid go-arounds due to overspeed in case the final approach speed of the planetype is set very low.
• Added 'rollangle' and 'rollrate' properties to planetypes, which determines the plane's turn radius when flying at high speeds (200+ KT), as described above.
• Several small adjustments and improvements:
• Pan/zoom stays the same when resizing/going fullscreen/pausing.
• Lock setting in the Display menu saves the pan/zoom setting for the current airport.
• When holding down the menu button (for 20x speed) the menu doesn't open anymore; the menu opens only when short-pressing the menu button.
• Clicking on the yellow text at the top of the screen hides any notification message, and clicking the blue text hides all non-aircraft related messages.
• Starting a new game in the Traffic menu now requires a doubleclick; this is to avoid accidental resets when browsing the menus.
• Scrollwheel zooming is more smooth.
• Added a small chance of random clouds appearing if the wind option is enabled.
• Curved heading line is now the default option. Long-press the Line button in the Display menu to toggle this setting.

v5.2.3 (21 December 2022):

• Added a sound menu with adjustable volumes.
• Minor adjustments:
• Game saves after completing a scenario, to avoid losing progression in case the autosave on exit fails.
• Planes won't backtrack anymore after landing at London City, because planes can use a taxiway in real life.
• For custom airports, the wake turbulence minima can be adjusted. See the 'wake' property in the [airspace] section of example.txt.
• Bug fix for departures that did not request further climb even when they were flying at a too low altitude.

v5.2 (17 October 2022):

• Added curved heading lines as an option, which gives a prediction of the turn radius of a selected plane. This can be helpful with timing a turn instruction, as it indicates the future position more precisely. Long-press the 'line' button in the 'display' menu to enable this feature.
• In custom traffic mode, the skill level is now fixed at a certain value, by default. Before, the skill value could still change during a game but the skill was limited by the 'cap' value. Now, the skill level remains fixed by default. Press the 'skill' button to toggle between this new 'skill f' mode (for a Fixed skill level), and 'skill c' mode (for a Capped skill level).
• Holding the Shift key while dragging the mouse from a plane changes the label position.
• Departures are less likely to request further climb in case nearby arrivals may cause conflicts.
• The 'custom traffic' menu is now moved one level deeper into the traffic menu; this keeps the buttons of the 3 traffic modes (normal/custom/scenario), as well as the newgame and endgame buttons, easily accessible when already in custom traffic mode.
• Beacons can be selected as near as 2 miles distance from a plane.
• Heading line length can be set at 30 seconds. Note: to further fine-tune the line length you can type HLINE00, replacing the zeros with the length in minutes times 10.
• Added more variation to readbacks when using sound mode 3.
• When the gameplay timer is used, then the next time the game is started, the timer menu will be opened as a reminder to reset the timer for next play session.
• Combined the 'go arounds' and 'missed approaches' statistic in the side bar as they're basically the same thing.
• For the PC version:
• Right click shows time to touchdown for planes on the localizer or on an app route.
• Added a 'controls' menu to the 'about' menu, just to inform users about available mouse and keyboard inputs.
• Re-arranged some hotkeys; F1-F2 changes simulation speed, F3-F4 changes heading line length, F5 toggles rings, F8 changes runway configuration.
• Tab key (to select a plane) now cycles through all planes in control, with priority to blinking planes.
• Cleaned up game folder structure; savefiles are now stored into the 'savegames' folder. On the first run after updating, savefiles will be copied from the root folder into the 'savegames' folder automatically.
• Steam: a button to open the manual is now placed inside the help menu; the (now redundant) Steam launcher popup is removed.
• For the android version: long-press 'lock' in display menu to toggle the software keyboard. This gives access to commands like HLINE15 to set the heading line to a length of 1.5 minutes, even when your android device does not have a physical keyboard attached.
• Custom airports:
• In case of duplicate airport codes in different files, the game now ignores older airport file(s) when indexing the files, by comparing date of modification.
• Long-pressing the airport select button shows filename of the currently loaded airport.
• When typing an airport code while in the airport menu, pressing enter will load that airport.
• More detailed file loading failure messages.
• No more random arrival spawn positions when playing custom airports.
• Further adjustment to avoid delayed planes in huge airspaces.
• Improved takeoff timing when there are nearby planes on final approach.
• Ignore the initial takeoff heading in case departure routes are in use, to avoid issues with route selection.
• Fixed incorrect drawing of circular areas due to a rounding error of the radius.
• Hotfix v5.2.1 (17 Oct): fixed issue with moving savefiles to new folder in combination with Steam auto-cloud save.
• Hotfix v5.2.2 (21 Oct):
• Fix issue where the gameplay timer was dependent on the time multiplier (speed) setting, in some cases. For example, a 30 minute timer should always finish after 30 minutes, even when playing at 10x speed.
• Fixed glitchy altitude arc when the curved line is used while heading for a beacon.

v5.1 (25 August 2022):

• Added aircraft target symbol customization, see the target button in the display menu. You can choose between 6 different styles.
• Added wind direction arrow to the side bar.
• SID mode of departures can be enabled by dragging from the plane onto the SID waypoint, similar to how arrivals can be dragged ('direct') to a beacon.
• The contrast toggle button is now hidden behind the light/dark toggle button (to make place for the new target button). Longpress the light/dark button to toggle the background contrast.
• Inbound planes deviating due clouds fly on a heading instead direct to the initial beacon, for improved cloud avoidance.
• Reduced chance of arrivals entering 'on top' of another arrival when entering the airspace, especially when using high flow rates.
• PC: Added a basic time lapse recording mode, which saves images of the radar display at a set interval. It can be enabled by typing TIMELAPSE00 where the two digits represent the time in seconds. To make an actual video of the images, you need to use a video editor that allows loading an image sequence.
• Android: bigger margins around text to account for possible clipping due to rounded screen edges on some phones, and app targets android-12.
• Specific for custom airports: planes are classified as 'delayed' a bit later when they have to travel through huge (40+ NM) airspaces.

v5.0.3 (12 May 2022):

• Improvements to scenario mode, mainly extending time limits to make it less hard to complete them:
• EDDF +2 minutes, KATL +2 minutes, LFPG +2 minutes, RJTT +1 minute, CYYZ +1 minute, YSSY +1 minute.
• Rewind button becomes available earlier, as soon as 2 minutes since using the rewind button before.
• Added text mode 1 to the display menu, to declutter the background screen but keep altitude restrictions visible.
• Fixed incorrect keyboard inputs on non-qwerty layouts.
• Dark mode is the default mode for new users.
• For custom airports:
• Added NAV mode for planes on an approach route. NAV mode cancels any altitude/speed restrictions on a route. Similarly to the LLZ mode (which can be used to avoid glideslope capture), NAV mode is enabled by longpressing on the altitude digits (so between the plus and minus altitude buttons), or by typing NAV. Later on, press the NAV button to resume the approach route normally.
• Planes on an approach route temporarily ignore altitude restrictions in case the plane is in a climb or descent to a different altitude.
• Fixed incorrect flow rates when runways are duplicated.
• Fixed plane position not updating when dummy runways are located very far away.
• Traffic flow to secondary fields can be specified in decimal values.

v5.0 (14 April 2022):

• Add 9th scenario (Sydney), and a Steam achievement for completing all scenarios flawlessly. Added hint on the 'goals' screen showing at which airport a scenario is unlocked and ready to play.
• Add rewind button exclusively to the scenario mode; this allows you to correct a mistake by going back in time by about 5 minutes. This works by keeping autosaves in memory every 2 minutes. After playing a couple of minutes, the rewind button becomes available. This feature can save time when making a mistake near the end of a scenario, as you don't have to start all over again.
• Add display options for runways (4 new styles), and background text on/off option to declutter the screen.
• Sweep button has option for 1 second update intervals.
• Planes give a warning when crosswinds are too strong, to avoid go-arounds.
• Minor adjustments and bug fixes.
• For custom airports:
• Corrected 'flow' property for the traffic rate to secondary airports.
• Loc offset limit bumped to 30 degrees.
• Improved timing of departures at secondary airports located directly below localizers.

v4.9 (16 February 2022):

• Added two more scenarios (Tokyo and Toronto), now totalling 8. Note that the first scenario unlocks the second one, the second the third, and so on.
• A couple of minor bug fixes and performance improvements:
• Measuring tool (right click) shows headings on both sides of the line.
• Adjusted initial altitudes of planes at the KJFK scenario to make the first minutes less hectic.
• Smoother panning/zooming.
• Fixed time slowdown when panning/zooming at crowded airspaces happening on the android version.
• Several bug fixes and adjustments to custom airports:
• Fixed incorrect entrypoint selection in case there are duplicate points in the beaconlist.
• Fixed rounding of metric altitudes at low altitudes.
• Fix for cruisers getting delayed in case of very large airspaces.
• Increased the range of the 'descentaltitude' property.
• Fix for app route not working when a 'rev' route was added before non-rev.
• Fix for ignored speed/alt restriction for app routes ending in a holding.
• Fix for possible unneeded go-arounds at high elevation airports.
• Disabled incident triggering for planes outside of the airspace boundary.
• The free android version is renamed from 'Endless ATC (free)' to 'Endless ATC Lite'. This change had to be made just to allow the game to remain published on the Play Store (google changed its policy and won't allow the word 'free' in app titles anymore).
• Hotfix v4.9.4 (21 Feb): Fixed an issue where the scenario buttons of RJTT and CYYZ were invisible even after unlocking them. Also the 'goals' screen now shows which scenario is unlocked.

v4.8 (14 November 2021):

• Added scenarios to LFPG and KJFK. The game now features 6 scenarios in total. To start the first one, click the scenario button in the traffic menu at EHAM airport.
• Lower occurrence of callsigns ending with alphabet characters, when playing at airports/locations where these kind of callsigns are less common, for example in America.
• Adjustments to lower the departure rate in case the outbound traffic rate is exceeding the inbound rate.
• Land/takeoff flow rate estimation in the side bar is now calculated for a window of 10 to 20 minutes ago (given there were at least 5 landings/takeoffs in that time window). This larger window of at least 10 minutes will average short traffic spikes over a longer time and should give a better estimation of traffic flow.
• Reduced vertical speeds of expediting planes a bit, mainly in case the forward speed is changing at the same time.
• Blue text line breaks off into 2 lines in case it doesn't fit on 1 line.
• When swiping clouds from the clouds button onto the radar screen, the wind setting buttons will no longer trigger/change winds unexpectedly.
• Added degree symbol to the heading indicator of the right-click measuring tool, to make it easier to dustinguish it from the distance indicator.
• Adjustment to allow fast-forwarding by pressing and holding the menu button also on Windows touch devices.
• PC: Added hints to the side bar to show the available mouse button shortcuts (for toggling ILS, altitude changes, OK, etc). The hints will automatically disappear after some time.
  
• Android: app targets android 11, per Google requirements.
• For custom airports:
• Optional setting of alphabet character likelihood in callsigns of airlines; see the '
  letters
  ' property in the 
  [airspace]
   section.
• Added 
  tower naming
   value to runways; the tower name (pronunciation) can be added after the tower frequency value, to customize handoff readbacks.
• Added '
  miles to go
  ' to the subtext when a plane is on an approach route towards a runway.
• Corrected delay timer and fuel calculation, which was incorrectly calculated at large maps.
• Allow for more departures when another runway used for landings intersects a takeoff runway.
• Further increased the limit of the number of secondary airports and airspace radius.
• Removed limit of number of airspace boundary segments.
• Fixed toggling between approach routes of different runways when custom approach names are used.
• Fixed approach route lower altitude limit for runways at a higher elevation.
• Fix for possible skipping of altitudes of approach route waypoints.
• Fixed drawing of heading line at the end of approach routes that are ending on a heading.
• Fixed departure SID selection for scenarios.
• Update v4.8.1 (23 Nov): Increased time limits of scenario 3 and 4 to make them a bit easier to complete (+3 minutes for both), and minor bug fixes.

v4.7 (17 Sep 2021):

• Allow speed of planes on the localizer to be reduced in steps of 10 knots all the way to the lowest value, instead of jumping down to final approach speed in one big step.
• Performance improvements, for smoother zooming/panning of view.
• Added 4 scenarios. Scenarios are short (<30 min) challenges which can be completed by landing a number of planes without mistakes. See the traffic menu at EHAM to start the first scenario.
• Android: allow the game to run on devices without a touch screen, and changes to the load/save system to hopefully avoid apparent issues on some devices.
• Improved wake turbulence detection on the localizer.
• Several minor adjustments and bug fixes.
• For custom airports:
• Added optional approach route name which can be put at the first line of the route.
• For airline likelihood weight factor 'amount', decimal values can now be used, to allow for more precisely defined occurrence or airlines/registrations.
• Fixed incorrect triggering of incidents when planes were still at tower control at high elevation airports.
• Various bug fixes to the [scenario] section.
• Fix to avoid planes on an approach route to be handed off to the tower too far from the localizer.

v4.6 (11 Aug 2021):

• Added a distance tool to easily measure the distance between any two points on the radar screen. Click and release the right mouse button to start drawing a line from that point. Move the cursor to show the distance&heading between the point and the cursor position. Clicking the right mouse a second time locks the measurement tool onto the two points. The two points can also be anchored to planes.
• New 'fixed flow' mode which lets you play with a fixed arrival and departure flow. The varying flow mode is still available (for alternating traffic flow between min and max values) by toggling the flow button from fixed to variable. Note that the flow values apply to the main airport only.
• While in the weather menu, pressing the Ctrl key places clouds at the cursor position, as an alternative to random clouds when pressing the clouds button. Android users can swipe from the clouds button onto the radar screen to place clouds. Clouds cannot be placed at the boundary as that could block arrivals entering the airspace.
• For Steam users: added achievement for reaching a score of 10 or more at all of the 9 included airports.
• Keyboard players can pan the view using Shift + Arrow keys.
• Several minor adjustments:
• Alt key doesn't unpause the game, to allow for alt-tabbing from a paused game without unexpectedly unpausing.
• Pressing escape key while in full screen pauses the game instead of switching to windowed mode. Also, when switching from windowed to fullscreen, the game does not automatically unpause.
• Lowered the TTS speech rate on android a bit. After Google updated their TTS engine a couple of months ago, some voices suddenly had a faster speech rate.
• Alt+F4 doesn't change the simulation speed anymore on before quiting.
• Added lowest overal airport score to the 'goals' screen.
• Minor performance improvements.
• Changes and bug fixes regarding custom airports:
• Approach routes that end in a holding at a defined beacon now switch to DCT mode on the last leg of the route, allowing you to enable the APP button again if there's a new route available from the beacon.
• Allow switching between approach routes if there are multiple routes defined for the APP beacon a plane is heading towards.
• Allow defining a custom diversion altitude; the altitude at which departures trigger a diversion penalty. By default, the 'diversionaltitude' property is equal to the 'ceiling' altitude, requiring departures to climb quickly before reaching the boundary. For smaller airspaces or when there are runways close to the boundary, a lower divertaltitude may come in handy to avoid unwanted penalties.
• Allow a higher rate of departures when departures routes are used at parallel runways, by having occasional simultaneos takeoffs in case the routes divert from each other shortly after takeoff.
• Longpressing SID for planes on a route will make planes readback the name of the last waypoint if the location of the last waypoint matches a defined VOR or SID beacon.
• Fix for custom planetypes unexpectedly overriding some default planetypes.
• Fix crash when defining custom planetypes without manufacturer property.
• Fix for departures being already in control by the user before takeoff in case the airport elevation is near the minimum airspace altitude.
• Allow for unique registration callsign pronunciation.
• Departure tag displays up to 7 characters.
• Plane mouse selection distance doesn't depend on the separation value anymore.
• Fix crash when zooming out on a large map.

v4.5 (9 July 2021):

• Planes can fly from one VOR direct to another VOR, similar to the current 'VOR then heading' function, by dragging the mouse from the selected VOR onto another one.
• Less likely trigger the 'above the glide' message when intercepting the LOC slightly high.
• Added a couple more hints to the help mode.
• Fix for not triggering a diversion when a handed off departure leaves the airspace boundary while flying too low.
• Fix for gameplay timer skipping two minutes when restarting a game.
• Changes regarding custom airports (full version):
• Optional custom altitude per entrypoint. This will override the general 'descendaltitude' value with a custom value for a specific entrypoint.
• Departure routes can now include an initial climb altitude to override the general 'climbaltitude' value. This can be done by adding an altitude value to the first waypoint of a route.
• Option to let approach routes end in a holding instead of continuation on a heading or ILS. This can be done by adding the words 'end, hold' to the last line of a route.
• Anticipated turn to a heading in case of an approach route ending on heading.
• Option to make arrivals automatically select an approach route if the plane enters the airspace flying inbound an APP beacon. See the 'automatic' property.
• Improved triggering the expedite mode for planes on an approach route with altitudes, to avoid levelling off early.
• Arrivals will spawn at a fixed distance (about 10NM) from the boundary when using a polygon boundary, similar to when using a circular boundary. Before, the distance could be much larger depending on the shape of the boundary, which slows down the gameplay and could cause issues with fast planes catching up with slow planes.
• Allow for more common lat/long coordinate formats, to avoid having to convert them.
• Airspace radius extended to max 100NM. Smaller airspaces are recommended for gameplay reasons.
• Arrivals inbound a beacon will check in at least 5 miles before reaching the beacon. This allows for convenient use of beacons at (or close to) the boundary, without entering a holding almost immediately.
• Minimum selectable altitude ('floor') can now be up to 2500 feet above ground level.
• Waypoints at the beginning of a route are not skipped anymore when a plane is close to a waypoint.
• Fix for holding heading being ignored for APP beacons.
• Delayed planes can now also select APP routes of alternate airports.
• 'End game' now turns around all planes outside of the boundary.
• Fix game freeze when using certain custom callsigns.
• Fix for incorrect cursor position when pressing Ctrl key if a magnetic variance is used.
• v4.5.1 (17 July 2021)
• Fix for planes exiting a holding getting stuck if the plane's speed is increasing at the same time.
• Planes on an APP route that ends into a holding will use the correct holding heading of the beacon (if it's specified), and the APP button will be available if the location of last waypoint matches the location of an APP beacon.
• Fix for ignored custom climbaltitude for departure routes.
• Fix for planes being diverted even before entering the airspace. This seems to happen only when planes are heading outbound the center of the airspace.
• Improved display of airspace features when longpressing the airport button. Entrypoints will be drawn on the correct spawn location, route end headings are drawn after the last waypoint. On android, the touch position will be displayed, as most android users won't have a keyboard connected to press the Ctrl key.
• Savegame function retries in case the first attempt fails.
• Fix for skipping waypoint when changing from APP route.
• v4.5.2:
• Fix for auto-handoff not happening for delayed planes.
• Game can read INI files as an alternative to txt.

v4.4 (31 March 2021)

• Added timer option, to pre-set a certain 'end goal' in terms of play time or number of landings.
• Added 'end game' button to the traffic menu, which switches to custom traffic with a rate of 0 to close the airspace. It also turns planes around that were about to enter the airspace but did not yet check-in.
• Departures now have similar speed controls to arrivals.
• The tutorial mode will no longer enable after a high score of 7.5+ has been reached.
• Changes to custom airports:
• Longpress the SID button to give a direct to the last point of the departure route.
• Approach routes can be defined as 'open-ended' instead of leading onto a localizer. When reaching the last waypoint, the plane continues on a heading, requiring vectors to the ILS.
• Added option for airport pronunciation
• Added option for custom localizer speed restriction (default is 200KT on the entire localizer). See the 'localizerspeed' option in the example file.
• v4.4.2 (18 May):
• Increased the maximum speed for planes at or above FL100 from 250KT to 300KT. Below FL100, the speed automatically reduces to 250KT, unless a speed has been assigned manually, in which case the plane's speed is maintained until the intercepting the localizer. Departures will automatically increase speed above FL100 unless a speed has been manually assigned.
• For custom airports:
• The FL100/250KT speed restriction can be adjusted (see 'speedrestriction' item in the example file).
• Open-ended approach routes have their final heading drawn on screen.
• Optionally, frequencies and atc names can be specified in order to get more realistic readbacks when handing off planes. See the added 'name' and 'handoff' items in the airspace section, and also the extra runway property to add tower frequencies.
• Fixed issues with speed reduction on the ILS and level busts on approach routes.
• Added reminder on startup if a timer is enabled.
• v4.4.4: bugfix for possible incorrect speeds on loading game.
• v4.4.6 (29 May); more minor adjustments:
• The speed selector value will not automatically change anymore when already adjusting the speed setting while an automatic increase/reduction happens. This avoids unwanted/unnoticed speed changes if the happen just before pressing OK.
• Fixed an issue that caused a lower than normal rate of departures, occuring since the previous update (and for custom airports only). It has to do with conflict detection with nearby aircraft and runways.
• Fix to show wake turbulence info (instead of distance to cursor) in the subtext when using keyboard commands.
• Fix typo where Luton was named L.
• Performance improvement for high inbound rates.
• Adjusted longpress timing when using speed01 command, to make the timing similar to when using the default 2Hz update rate (speed00, or longpress sweep).
• Added a couple more hints to the beginner mode for when planes are heading for the ILS in an incorrect way.

v4.3 (16 January 2021):

• Fix to make sure only English TTS voices are used if one of the US or UK languages are missing.
• Improved radar 'sweep' mode, to allow longer update intervals, and planes will now appear or disappear correctly during a radar sweep instead of any time.
• Fixes for the 'APP' mode as used in some custom airports: the approach routes will only be available when the corresponding runway is in use for landings. Planes will also start descending at the right distance from a fix, even if there are multiple other fixes without an altitude before.
• Fix to make the game keep loading custom text files on startup, even after one file fails to load (fails can happen due to incorrect formatting, like missing whitespaces at the beginning of lists).
• Added more keyboard commands for changing game settings, for example 'SWEEP000' to set the radar rotation speed in tenths of seconds precision, 'DELAY0' for the pilot delay in seconds, or 'SPEED00' to lock the game into a faster speed mode (just like when F11 is 'pressed and hold' to get 20x speed, but now you can precisely set the speed). Fun fact: even the command 'SPEED01' can be used to set the game at 1x speed. It will still be realtime, but the game updates at a higher frequency, making plane movements more smooth, or radar sweeps more detailed. This may look a bit nicer, but is otherwise a waste of CPU/battery usage. SPEED00 sets it to the default rate again, or alternatively press and hold the sweep button.
• v4.3.1 (24 February 2021):
• longpress the 'ring' button in the display menu to double the ring size
• bugfixes and adjustments for custom airports:
• APP button is available when planes are holding at an 'app beacon'
• approach routes can intercept the localizer as low as 500 feet above ground level, or as short as 1.5 miles from touchdown

v4.2.8 (30 September 2020):

• When dragging a heading from a plane that is flying a holding, the plane will leave the holding via the fix, unless the HOLD button is pressed first to deactivate hold mode immediately.
• Various changes to the recently added custom airports feature, to make it a bit easier to create airspaces and to allow for adding some more detail:
• In addition to the optional 'transition' routes to the ILS, 'departure' routes can now be added to each runway to create more detailed SIDs. And for clarity, 'transitions' are renamed to 'approaches' (but old files will be compatible).
• The airspace boundary can now be defined as a polygon instead of a circle.
• Restricted areas will work properly for concave polygons. Before, polygons had to be convex in order to function properly, requiring manually splitting of complex polygons into smaller ones. Now this will be done automatically.
• All routes can be displayed at once for easier editing/verification of routes. Ctrl + click sets visual markers on the screen for easier positioning of multiple locations.
• Improved pronunciation of long VOR names.
• Several minor adjustments: reduced doubletap timing to avoid unwanted zooming, reduced warning messages from planes near the boundary, increased time before tower orders speed reduction after handoff, added more hints for beginners.
• Several hotfixes where released, mainly to fix various issues with the new custom airports feature:
• Hotfix v4.2.9 (22 October 2020): fixed bug that caused errors when adding multiple departure routes to a runway, fixed bug that made airplanes leave and re-enter multiple times when flying near the boundary, and approach beacons are now highlighted for better visibility to the user.
• Hotfix v4.2.10 (1 November 2020): show available route(s) if an APP beacon is selected, fix for decimal values for custom LOC and GS angles, removed limit for number of approaches/departures/areas, optional specific inbound beacons for secondary airports similar to the main airport, reduced number of departures at the start of a game when many runways are in use.
• Hotfix v4.2.11 (17 November 2020): fix for unneeded go-arounds when two localizers are crossing each other close to the touchdown zone, departures leaving the boundary below 15000 feet above ground level are not counted as 'diverted' anymore even if the 'ceiling' is defined higher than that level, fix for issue with case sensitivity for custom planetypes.

v4.2 (6 July 2020):

• Improved multitouch (android), to make panning possible after lifting one finger from the screen
• Adjusted localizer status LOC, which will only be active when the plane points towards the runway, not when overshooting the ILS.
• Improved help pages and hints.
• Added experimental feature in the full version: custom airports, by editing text files. See this page for more info.
• v4.2.3: hotfixes for several custom airport properties
• v4.2.5: increased range of several airspace properties, added separation item, improved fail messages on loading custom airport, more tolerant interpretation of incorrectly defined custom properties.
• v4.2.6 (22 July): more departures from runways intersecting landing runways, bug fix for multiple transitions per runway, less slow startup when using many custom files, wider range of allowed altitudes for various airspace properties, decreased chance of accidental doubleclick zoom or panning, in no departure mode the departure runways are greyed out.
• v4.2.7 (4 Aug): further adjustments for allowing more departures near intersecting runways at EDDF and RJTT, fixed transition option for custom secondary airports, fixed graphical glitch when zooming quickly, updated some SID points for EGLL. This hotfix was applied to the full version only, as the changes don't affect the free version.

v4.1 (29 February 2020):

• Elevation of secondary airports can be different from main airport (for example at Luton the elevation is a bit higher than at Heathrow)
• Fast forward 20x speed by pressing and holding the menu button (or press F11 key)
• Planes already in a turn won't leave and re-enter the airspace
• Improved framerate (PC) and touch detection (android)
• Planes in holding patterns correct for the wind
• Option to quit game by ctrl + Q command, or the quit button in the About menu.
• Option to disable panning/zooming by clicking the lock button in the display menu, per user requests. This may be useful to avoid unwanted zoom events when clicking on planes quickly, or for having a steady view during gameplay recordings/timelapses. However, each time when starting the game, you have to lock the screen manually, so you can adjust the view first.
• TTS improvements on android 9+ (using more English voices, if available on the device)
• Added some more hints to learn new users about several (less visible) features.

v4.0 (25 October 2019):

• Added 9th airport (Sydney YSSY, full version)
• Dark sidebar option
• Flow indicator in sidebar (shows amount of planes per hour, measured in a 20 minute window)
• EGLL: initial descent level increased to FL90, and increased the airspace radius to 37 NM.
• Pressing ESC does not close the game anymore (PC)
• Smoother scrolling and performance improvements (android)
• More reliable wake distance indicator (arc), and several other minor adjustments
• Yellow text line is displayed on two lines when it doesn't fit on screen

v3.9.8 (8 July 2019):

• Choose between label styles: there's now a 2-line and a 4-line option, in addition to the default 3-line plane label. In real life, radar displays differ per country/facility, but in the game you can choose between 3 styles in the display menu.
• The text at the bottom of the screen has a black background for better readability when planes overlap
• Handoffs for departures are now only allowed above 3000 feet from the ground, to avoid (accidental) early handoffs and encourage the player to handoff planes when they're high&safe in the airspace
• Lowered area restrictions at EDDF with 500 feet, to avoid issues with low GA traffic, and it's actually slightly more similar to the real life situation
• Ability to move the sidebar to the other side using a quick&easy swipe from menu button
• Improved holding entry (direct, parallel and teardrop), and corrected the Lambourne holding at EGLL into a left turn pattern, as it is in real life
• Help menu added for beginners

v3.9 (21 Dec 2018):

• Added more weight categories, totalling 6 (as in 'RECAT' used in some places in real life), for more efficient wake turbulence separation, both on the localizer and time between departures.
• Added occasional (rare) light traffic (labelled 'L') at several airports.
• Wake arc will adapt dynamically to the required distance between two plane categories (instead of always displaying two arcs for 'H' and 'M' categories). 
• Planes inbound secondary airports will have a slightly different (mint) label color, so they're easier to distinguish from planes inbound to main airport.
• v3.9.3 (6 Feb 2019):
• Added low contrast option, to reduce display issues on certain monitors (VA, OLED) with slow black->grey transitions. When contrast setting is at '0', the black pixels will be actually dark grey pixels, improving display quality when panning/zooming.
• Enabled multiwindow support (android 7+) to allow for multitasking; could be useful on devices with large screens (tablets, chromebooks). App scales best in landscape dimensions, by design, because the options bar is on the side. Also added 64bit support on android, per new Google Play store requirements.
• Wake turbulence distance is added to text at the bottom when mouse cursor hovers above a near plane (and on android: when multitouch is used on two planes). When hovering over a near plane, the bearing towards the plane is displayed.
• v3.9.4 (9 March 2019):
• Wake turbulence distance is more clearly displayed to the user (birghter arcs, exact distance shown in infotext)
• Better mouse support on android; similar as the PC version
• v3.9.6 (25 May 2019):
• more light category aircraft, mainly at North American fields
• corrected Toronto departure headings to allow for parallel departures
• better explanation of the meaning of several buttons for beginners

v3.8 (14 Nov 2018):

• 2 new locations! CYYZ and RJTT were added.
• Customizable traffic rate
• Set traffic mode to custom to be able to set a skill value and skill cap yourself. The skill value will determine the amount of planes you have in your control at a time (and it opens more runways, and it determines the amount of traffic to secondary runways).
• Set traffic mode to 'flow' for a fixed flow of inbound and outbound traffic. For example, set it at 30 and you'll get 30 planes per hour departing, and 30 planes per hour arriving at the main airport.
• Added buttons for 'no departure' mode and 'no secondary traffic' mode.
• Customizable wind direction/speed/clouds.
• Better runway change implementation.
• More display settings: range rings, and XL font (android).

v3.7 (30 Aug 2018):

• Change runway configuration (by tapping the RWY CHG button, or F12) without risking missed approaches. Can be handy if there's weather near a runway, or the wind has changed. After a runway change request, it takes a few minutes before new approach clearances can be given.
• Inactive runways are visible (in grey).
• Removed doubletap ILS for LLZ mode, as it could be too easily selected by accident. LLZ mode is now hidden behind a longpress between the altitude buttons.
• Android app targets Oreo and has an updated icon and full keyboard support.
• Better departure capacity from parallel runways.
• When selected, handed over planes still have the yellow target heading line visible.
• Hold right mouse button to show estimated time for the plane to reach cursor position.
• Adjusted transition altitudes for EGLL and EDDF.

v3.6 (6 July 2018):

• long press and doubleclick functionality of the sidebar is now also usable for the mouse and keyboard commands
• planes can be cleared for the localizer only (LLZ mode) by typing LOC or LLZ, or longpress between the altitude buttons. This won't land the planes, it only avoids GS capture, so eventually full ILS mode needs to be activated as well.
• doubleclick SID autoselects highest altitude
• if player doesn't manually handoff planes, then pilots eventually won't notify user anymore when they switch frequency automatically, to reduce repetative messages
• hover mouse above plane to show type and distance from selected plane, on android use second finger to show distance from selected plane
• after a long delay planes will divert automatically

v3.5 (14 March 2018):

• planes can make turns greater than 180 degrees: instead of defaulting to the shortest turn to the selected heading, planes can now also turn 'the long way round' to a heading, making turns up to 360 degrees with one command
• doubletap between heading buttons to easily command a 360 turn over right or left
• separate savegames per airport: switch between airports without losing progress
• adjusted penalty for separation incidents: constant 0.5 point reduction per incident + small time component (results in less skill reduction for long duration separation incidents)
• smarter tower: it can reduce speed of planes (that are handed over) that are too close to a preceding plane (within 10 miles from touchdown); this could avoid missed approaches
• added L and R keyboard commands for left and right turns, H can still be used for shortest turn, and T is now used for headings after beacon.
• button added in menu to switch sidebar to the other side
• speed will not reduce automatically to 220KT anymore if user has set a speed
• faster speech rate when time multiplier is enabled
• game starts paused when skill is high (12+)
• for emergencies the vertical seperation is 500ft

v3.4 (18 January 2018):

• two finger pan/zoom (android)
• green text at the bottom now fits on screen (using two lines of text when needed)
• no automatic altitude change anymore when enabling SID mode (mainly affects KJFK area where SID is off by default; it should avoid unwanted climbs)
• added a warning message before cap mode is enabled for the first time, because goals won't trigger anymore when cap has been used

v3.3 (7 December 2017):

• LFPG and KJFK airports added to full version
• Paris (LFPG) has Orly (LFPO) as secondary airport, and flights over Paris city are only allowed at FL66 or higher.
• New York (KJFK) has Laguardia (KLGA) and Newark (KEWR) as 'secondary' airports (although they're quite busy), and all departures fly on a heading instead of the usual SID mode, so you'll need to enable SID manually at some point to clear them to their departure fix.
• reduced separation to 2.5NM for planes on the same ILS, closer than 10 miles from the runway; this avoids incidents due to compression when the preceding plane reduces speed
• category 'super' aircraft now have a J in the label instead of an S
• the skill value can be lowered (to reduce traffic), and decreasing it below 4.0 closes the airspace
• text at the bottom of the screen shows the distance d from plane to cursor (when mouse is used)

v3.2 (19 July 2017):

• more departures, by having occasional simultaneous takeoffs when it gets busy
• reduced separation requirement between two departures on divergent headings (15 degrees or more), to make simultaneous takeoffs possible
• reduced separation requirement for a short period of time after a plane is going around; this avoids double penalties
• Steam release (19 July 2017)
• TTS speech queue improvements; readbacks come before new calls, and pilots will less likely 'interrupt' you while giving commands
• easier expediting climb by doubletapping in the middle between the altitude buttons
• incident alarm sound is now silenced when selecting an involved plane, to avoid annoyance

v3.1 (2 June 2017):

• Wake turbulence behind heavies.
• additional android version released (see Play Store, first release on 12 April 2017) with multiple airports and extra options
• custom zoom by doubletap + drag up/down
• optional high speed climb
• automatic repositioning of labels for parallel approaching planes, to avoid label overlap

v3.0 (7 February 2017):

• Pilot speech added.
• Manual handoff of planes (optional).
• Move sidebar to the other side by doubletapping the menu button.
• Plane types are now visible in the infotext at the bottom of the screen.
• Share your stats via the button in the goals screen.
• In the PC version (see here, released on itch.io on 11 Dec 2015), restricted areas and multiple airports were added (Atlanta, London and Frankfurt).

Earlier updates:

v2.9 Added expedite mode / alternate ILS* mode / HOLD at position mode
v2.8 Smaller font size / more help for beginners / several adjustments.
v2.7 Added RD airport / more realistic separation rules / delays.
v2.6 Changable font size / sound alerts.
v2.5 Departures can now be vectored / various improvements.
v2.4 Added pilot delay / various small tweaks.
v2.3 Changes in separation requirements.
v2.2 Added automatic save function.
v2.1 Goals added / points scored per plane now depends on current score.
v2.0 Skill cap function / new menu.
v1.9 Pan view / cancel button / graphical changes.
v1.8 Double tap to zoom / various small tweaks.
v1.7 Zoom toggle button added / various small tweaks.

v1.6 Label shows 3-letter code / bugfixes.

v1.5 Bugfixes / changes to departure and arrival rate.

v1.4 Fixed parallel ILS bug / departure rate now depends on skill value.

v1.3 Fixed crash high dpi devices / various small tweaks.

v1.2 Touch improvements.

v1.1 Hints for beginners / bugfixes.
v1.0 Released on Play Store on November 2, 2013.