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My Model Airports

Current Airport:

Past Projects:

I started my first ever airport project in mid 2020, building a replica of LAX (Los Angeles International Airport). I worked on it for about a month but never got around to finishing it. I had a runway and a few taxiways finished but there were not gates which meant that all of the aircraft displayed would have to be on the runway or taxiways. This limited the number of models I could have out on the diorama.

My First Project

The airport looked something like this and it was great for taking model aircraft photos. In terms of the actual construction, I took some cardboard and used it as my base layer. I then took gray paper and glued it on to the cardboard before using white strips of paper to create the runway details. For the grass, I got a small model grass mat, and for the other details, I used markers.

 

I really enjoyed this model “airport” while I had it, but there was definitely a lot of room for improvement.

 

I went for a little while without a model airport and eventually got tired of not having a way to display my aircraft. That’s when I decided to start working on my first model airport with actual gates. There were four gates in total (3 wide-body gates and 1 narrow-body gate), and they were all remote stands.

My then collection on display on my first model airport

To build this, I used cardboard as the base layer (again) and glued paper on to it (again). To create the gate markings, I used markers, and for the tarmac, pencil lead. I utilized an exacto knife and shaved the tip of a pencil to get the lead powder, before rubbing the lead into the paper with my fingers. This is the first time I tried this technique and it worked really well. For this project, I got my inspiration from 772 ER on YouTube. I used some of his techniques and they all worked extremely well!

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E0DVfxIwZGk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8gDsTSN0Bc&t=31s

 

These are two of my favorite videos posted by 772 ER, and it’s where I was inspired to create my first “real” model airport.

After enjoying this one for a while, I started getting tired of it and felt that I could do better. I then embarked on my next 1:400 airport project. My idea was to create an airport consisting of four wide-body remote gates.

The materials used were very simple. I taped several pieces of A3 poster paper together before using pencils and markers to create the markings. To replicate realistic tarmac, I used the same technique as used before and rubbed in shredded led with my fingers. I absolutely loved this airport and it quickly became my favorite one so far.

 

After using this airport for a good couple of months, it was time to try something new. After watching an AS Aviation (https://www.youtube.com/@ASAviation) video on YouTube, I was inspired to print some of my own airport foils from the internet. I picked out the ones I wanted and took a trip down to the local print shop to get them printed.