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12 3. SHAPING THE BODY OF AN AIRCRAFT
3. Still in the Section tab, move those rough cross-section shapes to the appropriate distances
above or behind the reference point.
4. Go to the Top/Bottom tab and drag the points around in three dimensions, possibly with
reference to a background image.
5. Alternate between the three tabs to fine-tune the shape.
The Section Tab
In the top-center of the Section tab’s window is a checkbox labeled “aircraft has fuselage.” By
default, this box is checked; if the aircraft is a flying wing or another such oddity, it may need to
be unchecked.
If you need to use the shape data from another file, you can use the two buttons in the upper
right of the window, labeled Import Weapon Body and Import Aircraft Body. These will
set the fuselage shape based on data from either a weapon or another aircraft, respectively.
You can save a description of the fuselage (or some other note about it) in the text box in the
bottom right corner of the window, labeled “part description.”
Aside from these miscellaneous controls, the Section tab has four main divisions. These are
the Body Data box, the Body Location box, the Body Texture box, and the Cross-Sections box,
described in the following sections.
The Body Data Box
Figure 3.5: The Body Data portion of the Section tab
The Body Data portion of the window, seen in Figure 3.5, controls the basic features of the
fuselage. It is, effectively, your first stop when designing a new fuselage. The “number stations”
field sets how many individual cross-sections Plane Maker will link together to form your aircraft’s
body. In most cases, setting this at the maximum of 20 is not a bad idea, as each additional station
will allow you greater control over the body’s shape. In any case, you will probably want to add