Building Your Airport5 min read
Airport lighting
An airport at night is all about its lights. Every kind of real airfield lighting is available: white runway edges with green thresholds, centerline lights, flashing REILs, full approach light systems, blue taxiway edges, apron perimeter rings and a working rotating beacon - all rendered natively by the sim after dark.
What you can light
| Lighting | Price | Where to buy it |
|---|---|---|
| Runway edge & threshold lights | Scales with runway length | Runway property card |
| Runway centerline lights | Scales with runway length | Runway property card |
| REIL threshold strobes | Scales with runway width | Runway property card |
| ODALS approach lights | Scales with runway area | Runway property card |
| MALSR approach lights | Scales with runway area | Runway property card |
| ALSF-2 approach lights | Scales with runway area | Runway property card |
| Taxiway lighting | ₳1,500 per taxiway | Taxiway property card |
| Apron perimeter lights | ₳2,000 per apron | Apron property card |
| Rotating beacon | ₳2,500 placed | Decor catalogue → Lighting |
| Beacon towers | ₳900-₳2,500 by size | Decor catalogue → Lighting |
Runway, taxiway and apron lighting is equipment, not scenery: it uses no object slots, banks when removed, and refunds at 50% like other equipment. Beacons are the exception - they're objects you place, so each one uses a full object slot.
Everything bills once on save through the normal cart - see Saving & the cart. As with approach aids, all bulb placement is automatic: reshape a runway or apron and its lighting follows on the next build.
Runway lighting
Edge & threshold lights line both sides of the runway in white and cap each end with green threshold bars - the baseline for any night-capable strip, available on every land surface. Centerline lights add the white row down the middle (paved runways only). Buying the ILS package already includes edge lights on the whole runway, so the checkbox shows them as included.
REIL - runway end identifier lights - are a pair of synchronized white strobes flanking the threshold, the cheap way to make a runway end unmissable at night. An approach light system (or an ILS) supersedes them on that end, so you never pay for both.
Approach light systems
Approach light systems extend rows of light bars and sequenced strobes hundreds of meters before the threshold - the "rabbit" that leads you home. Pick one per runway end:
| System | Needs | What it looks like |
|---|---|---|
| ODALS | ≥ 800 m | Seven omnidirectional flashers chasing toward the threshold - the small-field classic. |
| MALSR | ≥ 1,000 m | Light bars over 720 m plus five sequenced strobes. The CAT I standard, bundled free with every ILS. |
| ALSF-2 | ≥ 1,500 m, paved | The full 900 m CAT II/III array with red side rows and touchdown-zone lights - big-airport glamour. |
On an ILS end the bundled MALSR is already there; ALSF-2 is the only (and worthy) upgrade.
Taxiways & aprons
Taxiway lighting gives a taxiway the classic blue edge rows, and - where a centerline is painted - green centerline lights, for one flat ₳1,500 per taxiway. A Light all taxiways button on the taxiway card does the whole network in one click. Vehicle service routes stay dark (street lights are decor).
Perimeter lights on an apron ring its outline in blue every 30 m - the visual edge of your ramp at night.
The rotating beacon
The Rotating beaconlives in the decor catalogue's Lighting shelf. Place it like any object, set the mast height (4-30 m) and choose airport, seaplane-base or heliport colours - in the sim the light genuinely rotates, flashing white/green across the field from dusk to dawn. Pair it with the beacon towers and light poles in the same shelf for a proper top-of-the-tower look.
The Lighting shelf also carries ready-made beacon towers - the 36 m stock lattice tower, the SNK towers, the LED masts - which rotate in the sim exactly the same way, no mast setting needed. They run ₳900 for the mini tower up to ₳2,500 for the big one. Whichever beacon you choose, it uses one full object slot: a beacon is a structure your field is known by, not scatter decor.
Night preview
The moon button (bottom-right of the builder, next to the terrain toggle) flips the editor into Night preview: the map goes dark and every light you've bought glows in place - edge rows, the green thresholds, chasing approach strobes, taxiway blues and the beacon flash. It's the fastest way to see what your money bought before you ever load the sim.