Ray Hill has provided us with a number of tutorials on creating 3D aircraft models and today he expands that series with an article on making airplane canopies. Using ViaCAD this actually takes only a few steps and is probably easier than you might imagine.

If you've learned to use Plane Maker, you know how to create and add aircraft of your own design to X-Plane. But Plane Maker's built-in abilities limit the shapes you can use. To create truly realistic aircraft you need to go beyond Plane Maker and use a 3D CAD program like SketchUp to create the parts you need. In this tutorial Ray Hill goes over the basics of how such parts are created and then integrated into Plane Maker aircraft.

If you've learned to use Plane Maker, you know how to create and add aircraft of your own design to X-Plane. But Plane Maker's built-in abilities limit the shapes you can use. To create truly realistic aircraft you need to go beyond Plane Maker and use a 3D CAD program like SketchUp to create the parts you need. In this tutorial Ray Hill goes over the basics of how such parts are created and then integrated into Plane Maker aircraft.

Every copy of X-Plane comes with the utility Plane Maker that lets you create and fly your own aircraft. The creative process is quite rewarding and enjoyable but may seem daunting at first. In this tutorial Ray Hill shows that it's not as hard as you might imagine, as he walks you through the basic design steps. In this 4th and final part, he goes over creating the cockpit, paint scheme, tuning and adding weapons.

Every copy of X-Plane comes with the utility Plane Maker that lets you create and fly your own aircraft. The creative process is quite rewarding and enjoyable but may seem daunting at first. In this tutorial Ray Hill shows that it's not as hard as you might imagine, as he walks you through the basic design steps. Here in part 3 he concentrates on engines and landing gear.

Every copy of X-Plane comes with the utility Plane Maker that lets you create and fly your own aircraft. The creative process is quite rewarding and enjoyable but may seem daunting at first. In this tutorial Ray Hill shows that it's not as hard as you might imagine, as he walks you through the basic design steps. Here in part 2 he covers flying surfaces.

Every copy of X-Plane comes with the utility Plane Maker that lets you create and fly your own aircraft. The creative process is quite rewarding and enjoyable but may seem daunting at first. In this tutorial Ray Hill shows that it's not as hard as you might imagine, as he walks you through the basic design steps.

Newer sims like X-Plane 11 are demanding on computer hardware, and more on GPU capability than some previous flight simulators. In this tutorial, Dominic Smith goes over the various settings available in X-Plane 11. He discusses what they do and how you can use them to get acceptable performance even on a lower end computer.

In this tutorial, Gary Rumpler shows how to add SketchUp objects to X-Plane. There are a number of steps involved in converting the original object files, but taken one at a time it all makes sense. Gary walks you through the process and provides links to all the required utilities as well as where to get already made SketchUp objects.