hello. been surfing around the xplane forum here and im intrested in learning how to design airports. is it easy? where can one start learning building new airports?

It depends what you mean by designing aiports??? If that means making a model of JFK for flightsim, then you just have to get an airport designer for the sim (there are many, just search on google I forget what they are called) and then somehow get the measurements, plans for the real JFK and start designing from there.

 

If you mean you want to design a completely new airport then that is more of a aviation/architectural venture. I work at an architects office and they actually designed part of the terminal at KHPN so I know and have learned a thing or two about designing airports. You would have to start with making rough sketches or what you are thinking of making, the size of the airport, what type of aircraft it would be meant for, how many airlines, etc. Then you would (if you wanna be really thorough) go to the FAA's website and find, or you could google Design standards and requirements for airports. A fair amount of research would have to go into this as well as the requirements for the aircrafts themselves (power supplies, gate sizes, weights, noise, etc.) and implement this into your "sketch" or idea. Keep in mind that different aircraft need many different things, you cant base your design on one aircraft family. 

Once you have a sketch, you could start drawing the plans, or elevations. Doing this by hand is fun, but using a CAD program makes it much easier (the best program for this is AutoCAD. you can make an account and get a student license as well as the software for free from AutoDesks Website, as well as have access to all their other software which is the benchmark of designing). Once plans, elevations are done you can either, depending on how detailed you wanna get go into construction documents and technical data, or you can simply make a 3D model of your airport, either on the computer, or by hand (Styrofoam and cardboard work great for models) If you want to do it all on the computer than I suggest you either get AutoDesks Revit (Student License like AutoCAD), or Google Sketchup (free version). 

 

I dont know what you really want, but that gives you an idea. Airports are possibly the biggest building complexes in the world and usually take years to develop. Organizing them well is a real skill, making the taxiways make sense, making the terminals work, parking, etc. Its not easy. Good Luck!

 

If you want any extra help, ideas or just to talk about it you can reach me at my email: [email protected]

 

Cheers!

i just mean to make a model of specific airports. is there tutorials or forums dedicated to this?

There are most likely forums around here or other places for that. You just have to get specifications for the Airports and build them in 3d on an airport designer software for fs. Google sketch up might work too.

 

 

Remy Mermelstein

777-300 FS Pilot

To make sceneries for X-Plane you need

WED (World Editor) or OE (Overlay Editor) to plop down scenery objects

 

X-Plane compatible 3D program such as AC3D which i use, Blender, 3DS Max, Lightwave etc...all those needs an X-Plane plugin for Import/export of x-plane objects.

 

those are the basics....if you want to make more detailed scenery then you need an orthophoto provider such as USGS, or Nearmap to make ground photorealistic imagery.

I'd say you first need to get WED (as the poster above said) and then read the manual that comes with it and you should be set. One thing to note is the manual does not cover everything that WED can do. There is a WED forum over at the org which is full of useful information.

 

Building your airport with WED can be very satisfying. You will struggle a bit at first but you will quickly get the hang of things if you stick with it.

 

Regards Pete

Depends how technical you want to get like others have posted.  Better to start simple and work slowly to more complex objects.