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5.3. CHOOSING AN AIRPORT OR LOCATION 47
Figure 5.2: Selecting the Open Aircraft dialog from the Aircraft menu [Full size →]
5.3 Choosing an Airport or Location
X-Plane’s aircraft can be relocated to virtually any airport on Earth. It can place your aircraft on
a runway or apron, or it can start you in the air on a 3 or 10 nautical mile approach to a runway.
To select an airport, first move your mouse to the top of the screen, causing the menu to appear.
Click on the Location menu, then click Select Global Airport. In this dialog box, you can search by
name or ICAO identifier through the complete X-Plane airport database. This represents nearly
every airport on the planet (currently more than 32,000).
The Select Airport dialog box is divided into three parts. In the top left is a listing of every
airport name, arranged by airport name, with the airport’s identifier listed to the right. To the
right of the list pane is an overhead view of the currently selected airport’s layout. The bottom
half of the window displays rows of “quick start” buttons. The buttons in the “Takeoff” column
(on the far left) will transport the aircraft to the specified runway. To the right of these buttons
are the “Final Approach” buttons, which will transport the aircraft to the specified distance away
from the runway on the button’s left. Finally, the “Ramp Start” buttons will transport the aircraft
to the specified ramp for takeoff.
To search the available airports, type either the airport name or the airport ID into the white box
below the list pane (labeled “Apt:”). For instance, you could obtain the same results by searching
for “KLAX” or “Los Angeles Intl.” You could even just type “Los Angeles” and scroll through the
results.
Alternatively, use the up and down arrows on the keyboard to move through the full list. To
travel to an airport, click on it once in the list pane to highlight it (causing a grey box to appear
around it), then click the Go to This Airport button.
Note that if the aircraft is moved to an area that does not have any scenery installed, it will