After a July buying spree, I’ve picked up the coffee table diorama project where I left off in March, making steady progress again after work each day. A key tool that helped reignite the passion was a 1:1 plot of the airport layout from my CAD model. With this handy, I was finally able to see my airliner collection as it will appear in the final Runway 00 layout.
The other benefit of the plot was as a design tool. To finalize dimensions which had not yet been set (for example, parking stand paint lines or the terminal forms), I unboxed one of each aircraft type in my collection and trialed each in several future-use-cases. My first reaction was that the widebodies dominate so much more than I anticipated; space is at a premium on the field even after the careful consideration during design. Thankfully, a 747-400 can squeeze past a full ramp of medium-size aircraft (though be warned of potential wing-to-tail contact!).
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