An Airport for small planes?
kd8gxw
Posts: 17
I think the question about a landing strip was asked several years ago, but I want something more specific. I have a WWII air plane and imagine it landing at a little airport. But no such thing exist at the Daz site or at Renderosity as far as I can tell. I think there are a couple Aircraft carriers, but that isn't what I am looking for. ShareCG might have had something, but they are gone. I was thinking of making a plane (no pun) and creating an asphalt shader, but the edges woud look so obvious. I'm not the real creative sort. I'd like anyone's ideas.
Thanks.
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Jackson's Field could be instanced and turned into a runway if you don't need concrete.
isn't that called a road and a small tower?
...I looked around at several 3D sites but the all the airport models they have are the major city international ones where no small plane would ever dare to land (and many are very expensive).
Indeed with all the small and historic aeroplanes available here and at the other stores, it would be nice to have an airport like one of these below for them to land at
[Troutale AIrport, Troutdale Oregon]
[Pearson Field Vancouver WA]
just a quick search through my library shows many sets with a strip of road as a separate prop
add it to a flat section of any terrain, UltraScenery, Terradome3, WorldBase XT , Lushlands or set of your choice
textured plane primitives work too, use asphalt shaders, decals, subdivide (have option loading) use geometry editor to create shapes, create material zones to grow strandbased grass etc
I don't own most of these as can improvise and kitbash stuff I have but some ideas
https://www.daz3d.com/asphalt-collection-merchant-resource-vol1-pbr-textures
https://www.daz3d.com/road-markings-and-potholes--decals-for-daz-studio
https://www.daz3d.com/road-features-stains-cracks-and-seams-decals
https://www.daz3d.com/ultrascenery--landscape-features-volume-4
https://www.daz3d.com/grass--crack-fillers-and-clumps
https://www.daz3d.com/versatile-terrain
I tend to think of small GA airfields as being mostly grass. That could be done with UltraScenery 2 for the 256m central grassy area using a flat-ish height map, grassland with a mask to make sure the strip in the middle is the shortest grass only, and then use UltraSceneryXT for the surrounding terrain of the type you want. The problem is that 600m is considered a short grass runway - could you scale the sircraft down if the camera isn't too near them or maybe put in false perspective by tombstoning the short grass mask.
In WW2 places like Biggin Hill (UK fighter station) only had grass strips at the beginning of the war - much easier to repair if the runway was bombed and little planes like Hurricanes & Spitfires didn't chew the ground up any more than modern 4 seat Cessna's & the like in wetter weather. The heavy bombers (like the Lancaster, Halifax etc) or medium bombers like the B17 could use grass, but prefered hard runways due to reduced drag, less load on the fragile airframes and as a result a shorter takeoff run (the designed fatigue life of a Lancaster was 24 hrs of flying - the airframe was that pared back to reduce metal requirement. As it turned out, some of the calculations were quite conservative, but very little of the 'Battle of Britain Memorial Flight' Lancater is original, having been replaced multiple times for fatigue reasons). Towards the middle of the war the UK front line airfields mostly had hard surfaces, and almost all of them are still visible with Google Earth.
Regards,
Richard
This is a small airfield in the UK, it handles light aircraft and helicopters. There is a control tower dating back to WWII. AS you can see it's a grass strip, but marked out for runways etc.
You might be able to build an old military field, now converted to civilian use by using:
https://www.daz3d.com/the-base-camp-bundle
or the individual parts:
https://www.daz3d.com/the-base-camp-part-1
https://www.daz3d.com/the-base-camp-part-2
I am not sure I have a small runway, but I found one runway in my runtime:
https://www.daz3d.com/airport-island-villa-park or in https://www.daz3d.com/airport-island-city-center
but your best bet might be using some paving decals on flat ground:
https://www.daz3d.com/road-markings-and-potholes--decals-for-daz-studio
I have ran out of time (and cloudfare struck) but I will think on other options.
There is this one over at renderosity.
https://www.renderosity.com/marketplace/products/131046/tb-toon-airport-and-control-tower-for-poser
It says it is toon, but that seems to be refering to the control tower, which you can replace. The actual airfield looks relatively realistic.
A guy called Chris Schell uploaded a bunch of military related airport props on sharecg, I don't know if these are still available anywhere.
sadly he died so unlikely but not impossible, I think Vanishing Point may have some
https://www.vanishingpoint.biz/freestuff.asp
filter by theschell under members
Here are some other items that might help. I was stationed at five bases that were active during WWII and these were still around in the 1970s/1980s.
https://www.daz3d.com/aircraft-hangar - no flightline or runway.
https://www.daz3d.com/military-hangar - a bit more modern, but might have been built later in the war. Again, no flightline or runway.
https://www.daz3d.com/portable-hangar - I don't own this, and the hangar is way too modern, but there is a tarmac.
My experience in air bases and old airports left over from WWII is that quonset huts were often used because they could be thrown up rapidly for almost any ground-level office, warehouse, hospital, or living quarters. Air Traffic Control towers were likely to be 3 - 5 story wooden structures with a platform, area for desks, seating, windows, and a roof. Think windmill with a little room on top. And don't forget a wind sock.
Unfortunately, we just had a mid-air collision at one of these airports in Fort Morgan CO within a week ago. One dead. No controller, pilots supposed to communicate with each other. Still being investigated.
chriscox shared a free vintage hangar but afaik, it's only the hangar:
https://www.renderosity.com/freestuff/items/83771/vintage-style-hangar
Here are two small airports you can model from - google Mishawaka Pilots Club and click on the 'get directions' for a satellite view. One asphalt runway and a grass strip that croses at right angles. The other - Augusta Arkansas Airport and click on the wikipedia image. It has expanded from the times I flew in on the corporte pigeon in the 1970s. For a more primative airport replace the asphalt with grass. Augusta's operations shack used to be an old camper trailer. The pilot's club has extensive hangar space, a small operations building, and no tower.
Basically you need a grass or asphalt strip 3500 to 6,000 feet long, and an operations shack with parking off to one side. Add-ons would include hangar facilities near the operations shack.
Can't say much about a landing strip, but depending on the theater in WWII there were lots gras ones all over Europe and some quite sandy ones in northern Africa. So it shouldn't be too difficult to make something up with some markers and a quick-build looking hangar
In case you want something more dedicated - more small town landing strip - there's always Parkside Head, for which there's even some interior. Probably would need a bit texture work, but it's cheap (if you are DAZ+/Premier)
the OP seens to have flown off
as this is an international forum, it could be (!) that they just went to bed right after posting and will check for answers in the morning of the area on Earth they inhibit.
Don't search for Airport, search for things like Airfield or Airstrip. One of the big problems with most of the CG sites is that sometimes something will be sitting there in plain sight, but the on-site search engine won't pull it up unliess you use the right keyword.
As it happens, the late German modeler Mausel has a very nice smaller airfield set with 2 hangers, a tower, a fueling station, and even an area for parachutists to assemble. It's available at Renderosity via Byte fafctory, and while his products are listed as Poser, i own them all and have I've yet to find one that wasn't usable in Iray. https://www.renderosity.com/marketplace/products/146091/sports-airfield-sportflugplatz a total steal at only $6.00 US.
Also, there's a nice set of WW2 airstrip accessories there from anndreasgr https://www.renderosity.com/marketplace/products/137406/wwii-airstrip-accessories that incudes useful bits like blocks for the wheels and a handpumped fueltank. Sadly, the dealer Thunderr used to sell a pretty amazing complete WW2 airfield set at renderosity called the Sturmovik pack with airfield, hangers, planes, and barracks... but it went to clearance a while back and is sadly no longer available.
... when I read the OP.. I was thinking more along the lines of a small airfield that a flying and skydiving club would be located at
One like the second photo I posted would be ideal for that.
BTW. Pearson Fild is the second oldest continually operating airfield in the country. The first aeroplane landed there in 1911, however six years beforehand the very first "aircraft" to touch down there was a dirigible airship that was flown from the Columbia Exposition in Portland to the site (which is adjacent to old Fort Vancouver) in 1905.
This is very close to the Elkhart, IN municipal airport in appearance. Service by Air Wisconsin to Chicago O'Hare 8 times per day, leaving on the half hour every hour in the mid 1970's to the early 1980s. flying the 19-seat Swearingen Metroliner. They also ran the same service from the South Bend airport to O'Hare 8 times daily, leaving every hour on the hour.
Yeah, it's a really solid little set with a lot of extra details like the bus stop and the snack shop. Mausel used to have a lot of great freebies on ShareCG as well, and there are still quite a few great ones in Rendo's free section, but as the names are usually in German, I suspect a lot of people miss out on them. After all, who's going to search for Forschungsstation when they're looking for an Arctic Research Station, or Pisten Bully for a snowplow?
Thanks for all the suggestions. Yes I was searching for Airstrip or Landingstrip and not finding what I wanted. Though I have the plane, and can get others, I could certainly imagine a desert campaign. It woiuld be easy to have it land in almost any terrain. (or crash) But with everyone's help, I have better ideas now.
I will look at everyone's suggestions. (Also, I did not think I would get an immediate response so thought I would let this sit for a day. The forum doesn't have a day/time posted, but it was early in the morning for me. I would let it sit for the rest of Monday the 8th and look at it this evening about 7pm for for me)
Thanks.
I used the airstrip one from Rendo in this render retextured and in Carrara if that helps you decide.
That's very nice. I think that airstrip is the closest to what I would use. I'm not up to the task of making my own airstrip.
Thanks.
...on Wendy'a suggestion I'm considering kitbashing one based on the second photo I posted. I do have a number of parts that could be cobbled together for a runway and taxiway as well as Ultrascenery as well as a few structures (including a lovely vintage hangar that I could retexture and use multiple instances of) .
Need something to do this weekend anyway as my D&D game had to be rescheduled due to one of the hosts havng come down with covid this past weekend (yep, there's a new strain going around).
I have occasionally got some good free asphalt textures from https://texturelib.com/ (not responding this morning, though). They do a number of seamless textures (and lots that aren't) & the license for redistribution as part of a distributable is generous and free.
Regards,
Richard
Germans would, probably
Alas, even though I am german, I usually use english for searches for 3d stuff.