Welcome to Boulder

Boulder Municipal Airport is a public airport just 3 mi / 5 km northeast of the City of Boulder in Colorado. KBDU sees hundreds of flights per day and tens of thousands per year, with 99% made up of general aviation aircraft. The surrounding airspace becomes busy during the summer months due to the proximity of several regional airport as pilots look to take on the sights this location is known for. Settled in the foothills of the Flatirons, KBDU offers tremendous sightseeing opportunities of the Rocky Mountains as well as short hops to other regional airports such as Rocky Moutain Metropolitan Airport (KBJC), Centennial Airport (KAPA), Vance Brand Airport (KLMO), Northern Colorado Regional Airport (KFNL), Granby/Grand County Airport (KGNB), and more.

Boulder Muni operates as a regional hub for services such as aerial firefighting, medivac flights, search and rescue, and other emergency needs. The airport was the center for emergency operations in the 2013 flood and has supported numerous firefighting and rescue activies throughout its history. It also hosts mission-critical flights for atmospheric and scientific research, coordinating closely with nonprofits such as the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

Glider operations at Boulder are some of the best in the nation due to its short proximity to the mountains and positive weather conditions, with KBDU offering both the Soaring Society of Boulder as well as Mile High Gliding as a base of operations. During its rich history, KBDU has been the launch point of several record breaking glider flights for both distance and altitude achieved. Soar throughout the Rocky Mountain peaks and along the Continental Divide with views of Longs Peak, Nederland, and the Alpine Lakes just west of the city, along with Bear Peak, Green Mountain, and the famous Flatirons. Be vigilant, as calm eastern winds can shift suddenly to western, prompting a more difficult takeoff on 26G over the lake and trees with few opportunities for an emergency landing. Boulder glider pilots can also enjoy steady mountain wave soaring when the weather hits just right throughtout the year, allowing for extensive cross country travel along the Rockies to other states and back. Glider pilots and their tow planes take patterns into "The Box" just south of the airport when training to avoid noise sensitive areas in the city, and frequently take longer tows to the northwest and into the foothills when setting off for a long day of soaring.

Airport

ICAO - KBDU
Elevation - 5,288 ft / 728 m
Frequencies - 122.725 CTAF / UNICOM
Runways - 8 / 26 - 4,100 ft / 1,250 m - Asphalt + 8G / 26G - 4,100 ft / 1,250 m - Asphalt and Turf

Features

• Handcrafted buildings, infrastructure, and details around the entire airport boundary
• Glider opperations with the addition of runway 8G / 26G on the north side of the field along with gliders, glider trailers, parking, Soaring Society of Boulder facilities, and Mile High Gliding facilities
• The most recent aerial imagery of the airport's surrounding area cleaned up and in the highest resolution available
• Custom runways and taxiways matching the current airport layout
• Custom surface and runway markings
• Nearby Points of Interest for the two runway 8G outlanding fields: Elliot's Field and L-Shaped Field
  
  

Installation

Drag the unzipped "phobosdesigns-airport-kbdu-boulder-muni" folder into your community folder.

The Future

After a series of corruptions and errors trying to compile with MSFS 2020's Dev Toolkit, and the now released MSFS 2024 (and lack of some plugins I was using for Blender as dev plugins are incredibly complex with version control), this project has been paused. It is unfortunate to say, as my current models (finished in blender and added to the airport file, but not compiled and released with the dev tools) for the main terminal and two glider buildings are now complete with a large amount of internal objects and details, people have been added around the airport, and the interior of a few hangers have been opened up for parking and completed with interior objects. Corrected DEM Data would still be another area to focus, although I've still yet to see consumer-friendly MSFS Toolkit options for this ever released after the only one on the market was removed.

I do hope to release the above as a final update one day, but this may sit shelved until I see better dev tooling for an individual consumer like myself with 2024, and I find the time and patience to uncover why the new updates I'm ready to release are erroring out during compile and build.

Thank you for sticking along for the ride!