Can someone explain how to slew up down and around an airport without falling back to the ground. It's easily done in FSX but I can't figure it out in Xplane 11.

You can pause X-Plane (hit "P"), then bring up the map (hit "M") and click on the aircraft icon and move it. Then, before unpausing, set the aircraft speed to an appropriate value (it can be set in the map interface).

If you only want to have a look around (without moving the aircraft), you can press "C" to activate the free roaming camera, and use various keys to move around.

 

Ahh. That's what I needed. Thank you very much.

you can also download and install this:     http://forums.x-plane.org/index.php?/files/file/34272-superslew/

It works a little differently, but it does the same job and works great.