Definition
Air traffic control facilities that use radar to provide separation, sequencing, and approach services to aircraft operating in the airspace surrounding one or more busy airports, typically from just after departure to handoff to the tower on arrival, and from tower handoff after departure until handoff to the en route center.
Plain English
These are the radar-based control rooms that handle aircraft in the busy airspace around major airports. They take over from the tower shortly after takeoff and hand you back to the tower as you near landing. They also line up arrivals and keep aircraft safely spaced apart.
Context Anchor
Seen in instrument flying and NextGen discussions when describing how air traffic control handles aircraft near busy airports.
Derivation
Terminal refers to the airspace at the ends of a flight — near the airport — as opposed to en route airspace between airports. Approach control reflects the facility's primary role in sequencing and guiding arriving aircraft. Radar indicates the surveillance method used.
Why Pilots Care
Pilots receive sequencing, separation, and routing instructions from these facilities during the critical arrival and departure phases.
Intuition Check
“Terminal” does not mean a computer terminal or only the passenger building at an airport. Here it means the airport-area airspace near the start or end of a flight.
Example Sentence 1
After departure, the tower handed us off to the TRACON, who vectored us around arriving traffic before clearing us on course.
Example Sentence 2
After departure the flight was handed off from the tower to the terminal radar approach control facilities for radar vectors.