Operation Worldport: Bringing A Cargo Hub To Life

LOUISVILLE MUHAMMAD ALI INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT (WIP)


THE BACKDROP: Centrally located in Louisville, Kentucky, Louisville Muhammad Ali International Airport (KSDF) is considered the second busiest cargo airport in the United States, the world’s 4th busiest airport by cargo traffic and plays home to UPS Airlines with their would famous Worldport facility. Worldport is 5.2 million square feet with a perimeter of 7.2 miles, casually making it larger than Minneapolis’ Mall of America and serves over 220 countries and territories. During peak night time hours is when the skies around Worldport spring to life with UPS aircraft landing every 60 seconds. The journey continues on over 155 miles of conveyor belts making sure packages are sorted and routed to the next aircraft all within just 35 minutes of arrival; some packages only touching human hands twice.

THE GOAL: As the largest edited airport in my short time as a member of the IFAET, this will be my largest challenge yet, and one that will take as much time as needed to assure a high quality airport that can be enjoyed by those who fly in and out of this modern marvel, whether cargo or passenger. My aim is to accurately replicate the smallest allowable details while optimizing the airport for device performance.

YOU CAN HELP: Live around, or better yet, work at Worldport? I’m looking for you! Send any detailed images or FYI’s my way that can assist me in creating the most realistic and best looking version of this airport.

DISCLAIMERS: The version shown in pictures is subject to change for final release as game performance and realism is taken into account. In some cases, sacrifices do need to be made to ensure an airport of this size and detail does not have a negative impact on game performance and user experience. You can expect occasional picture updates throughout the editing process.

I look forward to getting this airport to everyone’s device, especially those at @UPSVirtual.

PASSENGER OPS

Allegiant Air Delta Air Lines Spirit Airlines
American Airlines Delta Connection United Airlines
American Eagle Frontier Airlines United Express
Breeze Airways Southwest Airlines Sun Country Airlines

CARGO OPS

Air Cargo Carriers FedEx Express UPS Airlines
Ameriflight (UPS Regional Partner) SkyLink Express

UPS WORLDPORT FACTS

  • UPS Worldport is the size of 90 football fields and is the world’s largest automated package handling facility.
  • At peak capacity, it handles about 115 packages per second or 416,000 per hour.
  • UPS Worldport is too large to be air conditioned so its exterior is painted white to reflect sunlight.
  • It employs well over 20,000 employees.
  • Roughly 2,000 packages were processed on the very first night the site commenced operations in September 1982. Today, 2,000 packages are processed every 17 seconds.
  • UPS estimates that Worldport is riddled with approximately 1.2 million wheels and bearings.

For the fam at @UPSVirtual
40 Likes

Excited to see this airport come to life! Good luck!

4 Likes

Keep the work going @karl_iszler!! This will be amazing for UPS Virtual!

3 Likes

Thanks for your dedication and hard work Karl! we are all looking forward to this!! The infinite flight community as a whole will benefit from this addition! 😎🤙🏽

2 Likes

Very excited to see this! 😎

3 Likes

Glad to see cargo getting some more love

1 Like

Will be awesome to see this beauty come to life!

5 Likes

Hope to see some photos flying out of Louisville soon

2 Likes

As I fly in here for a week out of the month Im happy for this!

2 Likes

WIP UPDATE

2D & WORLDPORT BUILDING WORK


First update for this project. For the past 3 weeks or so 2D was my main concentration as there were large areas missing and an abundance of hidden and extra nodes present. After trimming down the excess and fine tuning 2D for accuracy and performance, I began the north side of the UPS Worldport building about 2 days ago. Took a bit to figure out which route I wanted to go and studied the imagery to see where layering would be needed (hint: everywhere). Made great headway last night on the remaining portion of the Worldport building and structure wise, it’s coming along nicely. Worldport has walls!

First Worldport Building Pictures

Just the bare bones has been done so nothing real fancy with pictures but a great feeling being able to show some UPS aircraft with white walls behind them.






Disclaimer: this is a WIP and the final version can vary from the images and details shown and listed above.
14 Likes

You’re doing a great job Karl! Cant wait for it to be 3D!

2 Likes

If only we had the 767F to accompany these mega hubs at Memphis and Louisville.

2 Likes

Hoping soon! The workhouse of UPS and many other cargo airlines.

4 Likes

Awesome work!

1 Like

This is great! Another cargo airport coming soon!

2 Likes

Oh baby i can’t wait for this to come you’re doing an outstanding job Karl

2 Likes

WIP UPDATE

WORLDPORT COMES TOGETHER


Forgive the lack of updates here; it hasn’t been due to a lack of work being done on the airport. Slowly but steadily the work continues and Worldport is about 85-90% completed. I have to admit the sheer amount of work on one single part of the airport did cause me to get burned out so I began work on the west and east sides for a bit just to take a break - in addition to Ontario International Airport. The FedEx buildings, some airport areas that are under construction and the firehouse are done in addition to large sections of employee parking and entrance areas. Still pending is the main terminal on the north side, military aprons which I just begun and I am still deciding on various areas of pavement and whether they’ll get removed before the final version - in an effort to make sure the airport is framerate friendly for everyone. All in all, while the airport is nearly complete, there is still large amounts of work to do - if that makes any sense. Without further ado, here are some WIP shots for you all. Enjoy!

WIP Pictures

Thank you to @Chief_Beef for the shots.

Disclaimer: this is a WIP and the final version can vary from the images and details shown and listed above.
18 Likes

Hi! You may want to add Sun Country Airlines as a passenger carrier to Louisville, as they are slated to begin flights there soon from Minneapolis!
Sun Country Airlines soars into Louisville Muhammad Ali Airport.

2 Likes

great work! glad to see these cargo airports come to life!

6 Likes

I agree with @Jessepeny ! We have a ton of great cargo aircraft in Infinite Flight, but not a ton of 3D cargo airports. Good work!

2 Likes