question about parking apron for airport...

[Donity]

not sure if they are called ramps, but im trying to make a 1:400 scale airport and had a question.

What i'm trying to talk about is the area where the plane "parks" and the airbridge goes around it. Think it's called a parking apron.

I was wondering if that in real life they have parking aprons of all different sizes, like a small one for the a321, 737s, etc, and a larger one for 777, 787, etc...

or are they all one size?

Sorry if I'm confusing you!

[saif380]

It really depends from airport to airport and the kind of aircrafts they most commonly receive. Also depends on whether it’s a domestic/regional terminal or an international terminal.
That being said some parking bays have markings for both wide and narrow body aircrafts, while some exclusive to wide bodies.

I design parking bay foils/mats for model airports, and I keep both wide body and narrow body stop-bars in the bay.

[Donity]

ok, thanks!

So, for the narrowbody one it would have to be large enough to fit the largest narrowbody plane, which would be a 757? (which I think is the largest narrowbody)

Also, before your reply I looked at some airports, like KLAX and noticed that they had one terminal for all their international flights, which were widebody.

Thanks again!

[dylan]

Originally Posted by Donity

ok, thanks!

So, for the narrowbody one it would have to be large enough to fit the largest narrowbody plane, which would be a 757? (which I think is the largest narrowbody)

Also, before your reply I looked at some airports, like KLAX and noticed that they had one terminal for all their international flights, which were widebody.

Thanks again!

This is only partially true. At my airline, here are plenty of gates that can take a 319 or 320, but not a 321 due , mostly, to its length. These are usually gates that are tucked into corners, or on the end of a concourse. I hope this makes sense?

If you're building your own design, my advise is just build it exactly as you want. But if you want to make it easy, just build as you stated above and make it able to fit a 757-300 so that everything smaller will fit.

[dmanonice]

Originally Posted by Donity

not sure if they are called ramps, but im trying to make a 1:400 scale airport and had a question.

What i'm trying to talk about is the area where the plane "parks" and the airbridge goes around it. Think it's called a parking apron.

I was wondering if that in real life they have parking aprons of all different sizes, like a small one for the a321, 737s, etc, and a larger one for 777, 787, etc...

or are they all one size?

Sorry if I'm confusing you!

In the real world, aircraft are divided into classes based on wing and landing gear span. These two dimensions are mostly used for gate planning. So particularly at airports where the terminals are rectangular the gates will be all the same length, but they will not always be the same width. The width will depend on the the class of aircraft it intends to take, which depends on the traffic expected at the airport. Irregular shaped terminals will have gates that take only certain aircraft of a class. In all cases you can actually have a gate that is normally used for smaller aircraft that gets a dashed line to accept a larger aircraft usually then there are restrictions on the gates next door that they would have to close or be restricted to certain types of aircraft.

The terminal I worked at had in it's normal configuration 3 class "D" gates (767/A310) and 16 class "C" gates (737s/A320 family/EMB170/190 family). Two of the class "D" gates and 2 class "C" gates had a second lead in line that allowed class "E" aircraft to use the gate as well.

So all of this to say is you can make it as complicate or as simple as you want, so design it to what you like.

[Donity]

thank you for clearing everything up!