Xīn lóng International Airport - Gate Numbering

Obviously its not much good having fully equipped gate spaces if none of the pilots can find their gates or lineup their aircraft correctly to meet the airbridges. So one of the finishing touches to the airport diorama is the gate detailing.

Gate numbering is pretty easy. As you can see above I used Microsoft Word to create little yellow, black bordered rectangles with the gate numbers on, which have then simply been stuck to the board. The gates are numbered from 01 - 12 with gate 02 (occupied above by the CA 77W) also having gates 02A and 02B as alternatives to the single A380 gate.

Most airports also have a nose in gate system (NIGS) to allow the aircraft to position themselves correctly at the gate and this typically manifests itself in multiple stop positions for different aircraft. I've tried something similar myself and am quite pleased with the finish. Again it is just MS Word drawn boxes cutout and stuck down:

You can see that gate numbering, in blue. has also been added to the pier sides:

There is obviously a wider range of aircraft types associated with the widebody gates from A380 and 748is down to A300 and 767s.

With these additions there isn't a lot more work to be done to the diorama. I am waiting on more airbirdges but unfortunately the parcel seems to have gone walkies somewhere between California and New Zealand. I am very pleased with the diorama so far and now I need to give some more thought to GSE.