I apologize if this is answered somewhere - I searched around, but didn't find an answer...

 

Is there someone around these forums who does freelance airport design?  I'm talking smaller local / regional airports, not majors.

I'm sure given enough time, I could figure it out; but there are folks around who love this kind of thing.

Anyone have any tips?  Thanks in advance!

Ron

 

I've noticed over the years that questions like this rarely get any attention; and yet there must be something between "do-it-yourself" scenery, and commercially-made scenery.  I am willing to spend money to get custom work done.  I am less willing to spend months?, years? learning to (maybe) make decent-looking airports on my own.  There are so many talented people in this hobby - I just thought I'd throw out the question.  Thanks,

Ron

 

Depends how "custom" you are looking for. Custom objects and textures take time to do right. Out of curiosity, what airports did you have in mind?

Pennridge (KCKZ) in SE PA is my local airport, and needs some better / more details.  Luray Caverns (KLUA) in VA is a frequent destination near my in-laws; that again needs a little more realism.  Stock objects and better taxiways would probably be enough for these two.

 

I'd love to see someone do Reading PA (KRDG) because it looks like MAAM isn't going to update their old FS9 offering.  (Love flying into that airport.)  That one would take a bit more work.

If you are willing to learn and spend some time: why not designing it yourself using Airport Design Editor (ADE)? It's lot of fun..

Check this out.

http://fsdeveloper.com/forum/

Adding to or creating airports is actually fairly easy and fun within FSX / P3D.  Use a program called FSET to generate realistic ground textures, ADE (as noted above) to create realistic taxi and runway layouts, and Instant Scenery 3 (Payware, and FSX only I think?) to place library objects while inside the sim.  The combination will give you excellent results, albeit with the limitation that you're reusing existing buildings & objects.

 

One other suggestion is to visit the FTX forums, and see if there's any interest in the FTXG freeware airport team in doing those airports.  Not sure if they are still active though, I know that when I was doing a bit of stuff with them, they were starting to be told to limit their work, and that was a year ago.

 

If you were on X-Plane and FSEconomy, I'd personally help you out with your requests, since I've been creating airports for XP on request in exchange for V$ in FSEconomy.  :wink:

OK; so you guys sound like you have experience in adding / altering airports.  Realistically - how long will it take a complete newbie to get to the point of doing anything that is worth keeping and flying into?  Hours?  Weeks?  Months?

Thanks,

Ron

OK; so you guys sound like you have experience in adding / altering airports.  Realistically - how long will it take a complete newbie to get to the point of doing anything that is worth keeping and flying into?  Hours?  Weeks?  Months?

Thanks,

Ron

 

Well, here's the thing - if you're focusing on editing a default airport, it's worth considering that ANY improvement you make, no matter how small, is still an improvement.  So in that case, we're talking closer to hours, if not quicker.

 

The biggest leap is downloading and becoming familiar with ADE, and ADE is not a difficult program to learn.

 

If you want greater accuracy, it's obviously going to take a bit of time invested in learning, but it's worthwhile for sure.

FYI there's a KLUA in the library here: http://library.avsim.net/esearch.php?CatID=fsxscen&DLID=187608

 

Edit: Oops, sorry I didn't notice this was for P3d, the FSX airport might not work

Realistically - how long will it take a complete newbie to get to the point of doing anything that is worth keeping and flying into? Hours? Weeks? Months?

 

I started with a small regional glider airport with only a small number of buildings. For the beginning, it is sufficient if you use stock buildings or objects from open libraries. You can adapt the runway, draw taxiways, make aircraft parking positions, place vegetation around the airport, buildings, airport vehicles, persons and many other objects on the appron. That will take many hours up to several days.

 

At the beginnung it will take time for experimenting and some reading in order to know how ADE works, but then it goes rather quick, provided that the required objects are available in libraries. Even if the airport does not look 100% like in reality, you can build the airport such that it resembles the original one or you make your own one.

 

In an advanced stage, you can design buildings yourself and use additional programs, but that is a long way and requires much more time.

Thanks, guys.  I'll give it a shot.

In the meantime, freelance designers are still invited to contact me!  LOL

Ron