Airport Basics

Airport Layout

All FSE Airports and Airport Pages are laid out the same way.  There are three main areas on every FSE Airport:

• FBO Business(es)

• Assignment Holding Area

• Aircraft Parking Area

FBO Business(es)

At the top of the Airport Page is the list of FBO Business(es) that may be operating on the airport. Every airport has a dedicated space where up to four FBOs may be present, with three of those FBOs being operated by FSE Players.  

Most FSE Airports will have at least one FBO, but the smaller Airstrips might not have an active FBO. An FBO business in FSE can sell fuel, perform aircraft maintenance, sell commodities, or spawn passenger assignments into the game.   See the FBO section for more information on FSE FBOs.

Assignment Holding Area

Below the list of FBOs is the Assignment Holding Area.  All FSE Assignments that are available to the FSE Public are listed  in this area.  Passengers, Cargo, and player-generated Goods Transfer assignments are all gathered together in this same location. 

Aircraft Parking Area

All aircraft in FSE park in the same area on the airport.  The list of all aircraft located at the airport is located below the Assignment Holding Area.

Type Category

FSE Airports also have three main type categories: Civil Airport, Seaplane Base, and Military Airfield

• Civil Airport

• Seaplane Base

• Military Airfield

The type category is mostly just relevant to what type of assignments the FSE system spawns.  The names of the assignments might be affected by the type, such as "Military Contractors".  Other game play factors such as who can land where are not restrcted by the type.  FSE Players can operate FBOs at military bases, wheeled planes can operate to/from Seaplane Bases (by using solid land in the simulator), and float planes can operate to/from Civil or Military airports (by using near-by water in the simulator). Thus, it will not be uncommon to find a large, land-based aircraft at a Seaplane Base, nor uncommon to find a miltiary-type aircraft at a Civil Airport. 

it is easy to identify the size category of a Civil Airport by using the Airport Icon (see legend below). However, Seaplane Bases and Military Airfields also come in "small", "medium", and "large", but there is no easy way to identify which size category these two types of FSE Airports belong to.

NOTE: When preparing to fly to or from an FSE airport, ALWAYS CHECK to see if that airport exists in your simulator, and if fuel is available for sale. An airport with a player owned FBO might run out of fuel but the airport icon will still display the hash marks indicating the location sells fuel. 

Airport Zones

The method FSE uses for determining your starting location and ending location essentially divides the world into "Airport Zones".   These "zones" can be very tiny, occupying just a few square hundred meters, or very large at many hundreds or even thousands of square miles. Anywhere you are inside this "zone" is represented on the FSE Game World as "at that airport".   You might be over the middle of the Pacific Ocean in a float plane, but if you were to land on the water and end your flight, FSE would log your flight as ending at an airport in New Zealand, if that NZ airport's "zone" was where you were at.

How FSE Determines Your Location

FSEconomy uses a rather simple method to determine the location you start a flight and end a flight. FSE will take your latitude and longitude coordinates submitted by the simulator, and find the closest "airport center" datum coordinate. The closest FSE Airport centering mark to your airplane is where FSE considers your aircraft to be. 

This has both upsides and downsides. The upside is that you can use custom airport scenery for airports that are not included in FSE.  These can be fictitious or real.  You can also simply land anywhere on earth, and have FSE recognize that you are at "somewhere".  This is great for "bush pilots" who want to land at a fictitious hunting lodge in Alaska, or for pilots in parts of the world where FSE does not include many real airports.

The downside is that there are several FSE airports close together, and many FSE pilots find themselves unexpectedly at the "wrong" airport.  At nearly all airports, this is not a concern. Usually, the closest airport center when on runways or taxiways is that of the airport you would expect. In other cases, the end of the runway at Airport A may actually be closer to the center of Airport B, which leads to problems. In these cases, you may find that you have landed at the "wrong" airport. Or, you might find that you are unable to take off because FSE thinks you do not have an airplane rented at the airport you think you are at. See the section, Common Airports with Flight Logging Issues, for examples of some of the airports with frequent logging problems.

How to determine what Airport Zone you are in

If you are in your simulator, you can determine the FSE Airport Zone for that specific location by simply opening your FSE Client and attempting to "start" a flight.  The FSE Client will give you an error, telling you that you do not have an aircraft rented at "Airport X".   This tells you that you are inside the FSE "Airport X" zone.

Perhaps you have downloaded a fictitious Alaska Hunting Lodge with cabins and an unimproved dirt strip, and you want to fly to and from this lodge as your role play scenario for your FSE persona.  Once you have determined that your Alaska Lodge is known to FSE as "Airport X", you can simply use the "Airport X" airport page on the FSE Game World to find assignment, get fuel, and perhaps even establish an FBO for other players to come visit.   Any FSE player can use Airport X by downloading the same scenery, or by landing at the actual airport, or by landing anywhere else inside the Airport X "Zone".