Airside

Airside ATC

ATC simulator for Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024

Airside ATC puts you on the controller's side of MSFS 2024. You work the traffic at any airport in the simulator, and every aircraft on the field does what you tell it.

Try it free See the price

The Airside desk showing the airport plan, the approach radar, flight strips, the radio log, the ground service pools, the flight board and the weather.
The whole desk on one screen

Play as the air traffic controller in MSFS 2024

Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 lets you fly and talk to its controllers. It does not let you be one. Airside is the other seat: you sit in the tower, the traffic is flown for you, and nothing moves on the airport until you clear it.

It is the whole field in one position. Clearances, pushback, taxi, runway crossings, line up, take off and landing are all yours.

A tower simulator at every airport in the sim

The runways, the taxiways and their names, the gates and stands, and the published departures (SID) and arrivals (STAR) are read from the simulator itself. Your home field is there already, and so is every other airport in the world. A scenery add-on works exactly like a stock airport.

Standalone tower games ship a handful of airports and sell the rest one by one. Airside has every airport Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 has, because that is where it reads them from.

Ground control: pushback, taxi, stands and runway crossings

Aircraft board at the gates, call you when they are ready, and wait for your pushback. You route them across the taxiways, hold them short, cross them over active runways, and bring the arrivals in to a free stand.

An Air France A320 on stand at night, with a baggage belt loader, carts and a service truck beside it.
On stand, and every vehicle it needs free

Voice ATC: speak on the frequency, or click

Hold a key and say the clearance the way you have heard it done, and the crew reads it back. If you would rather not talk, pick the aircraft and press the instruction. The crews add a few words of their own now and then, and ask back when they did not catch you. The speech recognition and the crew voices run on your own computer, and every crew gets a voice from 45, in a range of accents.

The radio log showing a spoken instruction and the full taxi clearance beside an ATR taxiing at dusk.
Say it out loud, and the desk writes it properly

Real airlines, and a day that fills itself

Flights land, park, take on their bags and their fuel, and go out again on the next leg. 292 airlines fly to places they really fly to, in the simulator's own aircraft or in the free FSLTL traffic set. You choose how busy it gets: a quiet field where you can take your time, or an hour with no gaps in it at all. With the full version, live traffic brings the real day instead: the airlines, flight numbers and times your airport actually works.

Learn ATC phraseology as you go

You do not need to know the phraseology before you start. Four lessons teach the position, and the crews ask for what they need before you have to guess. Get a callsign wrong and the frequency asks you to say again, the way a real one would.

Everything the crews understand, with their answers, is in the radio manual.

The controller's seat, not the pilot's

Most ATC add-ons for MSFS, such as BeyondATC and SayIntentions, give pilots a controller to talk to, and networks such as VATSIM and IVAO put real people on the frequency. Airside is the opposite seat, and it is single player: you are the controller, and every aircraft is flown for you inside your own simulator.

The pilot's seat

You fly the aeroplane. An ATC add-on or a network gives you a controller to talk to.

The controller's seat

You are the controller. Airside flies every aircraft, and none of them moves until you say so.

What you need

Simulator
Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024, owned and installed. Not the 2020 edition yet.
Windows
Windows 10 or 11, 64 bit
RAM and disk
1 GB of RAM iAbout 1 GB even with heavy traffic. and 2.5 GB of disk for Airside itself iThe setup is 50 MB and downloads 2.2 GB. With heavy daily use it can grow to about 3.5 GB over six months.
Internet
A connection at start up
Microphone
Only if you want to speak

ATC simulator questions

Can I be an air traffic controller in MSFS 2024?

Yes, with Airside. The simulator on its own lets you fly and talk to its controllers. Airside puts you in the controller's position at any airport, and the aircraft do what you tell them.

Is there a tower controller mode in Microsoft Flight Simulator?

Not in the simulator itself. Airside adds one: it runs alongside Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024, reads the airport you are at, and gives you its frequencies to work.

Can I control the AI traffic in MSFS 2024?

Airside brings its own traffic and flies it for you, and every movement on the airport waits for your instruction. Turn off the simulator's own AI traffic before your first shift, so the two do not meet.

Does it work with VATSIM or IVAO?

No. Airside is single player. All the traffic is Airside's own, flown inside your simulator, and nobody else is on the frequency, so you can learn the job at your own pace.

Does it work with Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020?

Not yet. Airside is made for Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 and needs it installed. Support for the 2020 edition is on our roadmap.

Does it work at my home airport?

Yes, if the simulator has it. Every airport in Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 works, scenery add-ons included, because the layout is read from the simulator itself.

Is there a free demo?

Yes. One hour of Airside with everything except live traffic, counted from the first time Airside opens on your computer. Sign in with your e-mail address and download it.

Do I need a microphone?

No. Every instruction can be given with a click. A microphone is only needed if you want to speak.

BeyondATC, SayIntentions, VATSIM, IVAO and FSLTL belong to their owners and are named here only to say how Airside differs.