Creating Custom Airports For X-Plane: A Beginner's Guide

Creating an airport in X-Plane is a complex but rewarding process. The primary tool used is WorldEditor (WED), which was created by Laminar Research specifically for working with X-Plane scenery. This tool allows users to design airports with a high level of detail and customisation, including the placement of runways, buildings, pavement, and other features. The process involves creating a new scenery package, familiarising oneself with the WED workspace, importing airport data, and adding objects and facades to build up the airport's infrastructure. Users can also utilise orthophotos, which are aerial images with latitude and longitude coordinates, to guide the placement of objects accurately. The final steps involve exporting the scenery package and sharing it with other X-Plane users through the Airport Scenery Gateway database.

Using WorldEditor

WorldEditor (WED) is an open-source scenery and airport editor for X-Plane. It is designed to be a graphical tool for editing scenery overlays and can be used to create full custom airports, customise default X-Plane airports, and customise air traffic control flow at an airport.

To use WorldEditor, follow these steps:

• Visit the X-Plane Developer WorldEditor page and download the version of WED for your operating system. Save it to a location you can easily access, like your desktop.
• Extract the WED executable from the ZIP file and save it somewhere you can easily find it later. WED is a single-executable file only and does not require an installer.
• Launch WED by double-clicking on it.
• If this is your first time launching WorldEditor, you must point the application to your X-Plane installation. To do this, click the "Choose X-Plane Folder" button in the bottom right of the window. In the new window that opens, navigate to your X-Plane folder, and click "Select" or "OK".
• WED will verify the selected folder as a valid X-Plane installation by testing for the presence of the "Resources/default scenery/" and "Custom Scenery/" folders inside that location. After that, the remaining "New" and "Open" buttons will be enabled, and WED is ready to be used.

Creating a New Package

To create a new scenery package in WorldEditor, follow these steps:

• Launch WED and click the "New Scenery Package" button.
• Type a name for the package and press Enter.
• With the name entered, click "Open Scenery Package". After a moment, the WED drafting window will appear, showing a new, empty scenery package.

Importing Airport Data

To import airport data, follow these steps:

• Open the File menu and click "Import from Airport Scenery Gateway".
• Type the ICAO identifier of the airport in the text box labelled "Filter", click the airport to select it, and click "Next".
• Select the specific scenery pack you want to edit on the next screen, then click "Import Pack(s)". In cases where more than one scenery exists at an airport, select the pack with the status "Recommended".

Adding an Orthophoto Guide

To add an orthophoto guide, follow these steps:

• Download some orthophotos of the area you want to cover. For scenery in the US, you can obtain public domain orthophotos from the USGS Seamless server. Outside the US, it may be more difficult as copyright on most imagery will prevent you from distributing the images with your scenery.
• Once you have your orthophotos saved into your custom scenery folder, click "Pick Overlay Image..." from under the View menu, and navigate to your image file. Assuming you selected an image with coordinates embedded in the file, WorldEditor will automatically place the image in the correct location.

Exporting a Scenery Package

To export a scenery package, follow these steps:

• When you have finished customising the airport, open the File menu and select "Validate". This command will check the WED file for errors based on the current export target.
• You can change the export target by selecting "Target X-Plane Version" from under the File menu. Remember that selecting a version older than 10.0 might disable newer features, such as ATC data.
• If no errors are present, select "Export Scenery Pack" from the File menu. The new scenery will be visible the next time you load the area in X-Plane.

Installing WED

To install WED, you must first download the version of WED for your operating system. Save the zip file to a location you will be able to find it, like your desktop.

Next, extract the WED executable from the zip file and save it somewhere you will be able to find it later. WED is a single-executable file only, so no installer or other special installation procedures are required.

To launch WED, simply double-click on it. If this is your first time launching WED, you must point the application to your X-Plane installation. To do this, click the "Choose X-Plane Folder" button in the bottom right of the window. In the new window that opens, navigate to your X-Plane folder, and click "Select" or "OK".

WED will verify the selected folder as a valid X-Plane installation by testing for the presence of the "Resources/default scenery/" and "Custom Scenery/" folders inside that location. After that, the remaining "New" and "Open" buttons will be enabled, and WED is ready to be used.

Familiarising yourself with the workspace

To create an airport in X-Plane, you'll be using WorldEditor (WED), a tool created by Laminar Research specifically for working with X-Plane scenery. To familiarise yourself with the WED workspace, follow these steps:

Firstly, launch WED by double-clicking on WED.exe (or WED.app on a Mac). You may first need to navigate to your X-Plane folder, but then you should be able to click the "New Scenery Package" button. Name your package and press Enter. For this tutorial, we will use the name "KOJC Johnson County Executive".

The WED workspace is made up of multiple panes. On the far left is the library browser, where you can browse through the files in the X-Plane library using their virtual paths. To the right of this are the scenery editing panes, which include the toolbar, the pointer coordinates, and the map pane. This pane is used to place objects and visually modify their positions. You can zoom in and out using your mouse scroll or the + and - keys on your keyboard.

To the right of the scenery editing pane is the object hierarchy list and the attributes pane. The object hierarchy pane lists all the objects in a given airport, in roughly the order that they will be loaded in. Each object and group of objects can be set to locked or unlocked, and visible or invisible. Beneath this is the attributes pane, which lists all the user-modifiable attributes of the selected object.

Above all these panes is the tool defaults pane, where you can set up preferences before using a tool. The specific attributes available to set vary by tool but will be remembered the next time you use it.

You can adjust the size of the window's panes by mousing over the bars separating each segment and dragging it to your desired size. Alternatively, you can right-click within the three outer panes and drag your cursor to resize.

Importing airport data

With your package created, you will need to import its apt.dat information. An apt.dat file contains information about the layout of an airport. The airport data included with X-Plane by default is generally of high quality, so you will import the existing data for your chosen airport.

Open the File menu and click "Import from Airport Scenery Gateway". This option is recommended as it contains the most up-to-date airport information. Type the ICAO identifier of your chosen airport in the text box labelled "Filter" (found at the top of the dialog box), click the airport to select it, and click "Next".

Select the specific scenery pack you want to edit on the next screen, then click "Import Pack(s)". In cases where more than one scenery exists at an airport, select the pack with the status "Recommended".

You should now be able to see, at the minimum, the main runway and an airport boundary.

Depending on the airport you’ve chosen, you may not be familiar with how its buildings, pavement, etc. are laid out. You can fix this by downloading some orthophotos of the area—aerial photos whose corners are mapped to exact latitude and longitude coordinates.

For scenery in the US, it’s easy to obtain public domain orthophotos that may be used freely. Outside the US, it may be more difficult—copyright on most imagery like this will prevent you from distributing the images with your scenery.

If your example airport is in the US, download your orthophoto from a public image server like the USGS Seamless server. For instructions on how to download the images you need from this server, see the "Using the USGS Seamless Server" article.

Once you have your orthophotos saved into your custom scenery folder, click "Pick Overlay Image…" from under the View menu, and navigate to your image file. Assuming you selected an image with coordinates embedded in the file, WorldEditor will automatically place the image in the correct location. Now, as you complete the next steps of adding objects and facades, you can use the orthophoto as a guide to help you place them in the correct spots.

Exporting a scenery package

When you have finished customising the airport, open the File menu and select Validate. This command will check the WED file for errors based on the current export target. You can change the export target by selecting Target X‑Plane Version from under the File menu. Remember that selecting a version older than 10.0 might disable newer features, such as ATC data.

If no errors are present, select Export Scenery Pack from the File menu. The new scenery will be visible the next time you load the area in X‑Plane. If you would like to share your work with other X-Plane users, check out the section of the manual that details how to submit scenery to the Airport Scenery Gateway.

Frequently asked questions