Behind The Scenes: Pilot Schoold

When thinking about a new design work, you can always draw inspiration from your current interests, or newly found obsessions. I really love aviation since my teens and always dreamt about private pilot license.

That's a goal, that's still ahead of me, but I already enjoy reading about flying, watching all kinds of aviation content and playing sims. If you have a hobby like that, try to come up with an idea that builds on that passion and knowledge.

You will be surprised, how much easier and more enjoyable it is to create something, that draws from that kind of inspiration.

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That said, aviation is a pretty large topic and the first thing that comes to mind is a scene with an airplane. But if you stop for a while and go deeper, there is a lot more going on with any particular theme you chose. With aviation, there is a whole infrastructure supporting it including small general aviation airports, manufacturing industry, etc. 

So whatever you pick, you can always go one level under and explore. I always loved the vibe of a small uncontrolled airport. Places, sometimes lost in time a bit, with old furniture and equipment, abandoned rooms that served as RC hobby clubs, rusty hangars. It just breathes atmosphere. 

So I landed on the idea of a pilot school classroom. I went ahead and tried to find a room like that. I found out that it's not an easy task this time. All of it is either new and modern classrooms, or some kind of military settings. And I was interested in none of that. 

I was able to find few old classroom images and a room with a map that could be from a place I imagined, so I tried to build on that. Rather than looking for more existing setups, I relied on my imagination and feeling and searched for objects, that could be found in a place like this.

Old radio communication rig, telephone, typewriter. TV to play instruction videos and tape player to learn about tower comms. The next step was to sketch a test layout and I really recommend you to do this every time. Doesn't matter how the sketch looks like, but having an idea of a layout prior to modeling is priceless.

I placed some maps and board and made room for desk and other tables, thinking about small details, that could go there. It's common to have a model airplane in class to demonstrate meneuvers, so I placed on on the desk and I also filled in some secondary detials, like AC ducts and pipes.

You can watch the process video on Youtube