Airport Day — Live Terminal Operations Sim

30 flights, 120 travelers, 9 cinematic cams, and an entire day cycling forever — boarding, delays, weather diversions, VIP motorcades, and the occasional lost child.

Try it live → Source on GitHub

Built with: three.jsr160single-file

#3d#simulation#living-world

## What this is A single-file three.js demo that runs an entire airport day forever. Thirty flights populate a departures and arrivals board, 120 travelers walk between concourse, security, gates, baggage, drop-off and seating, and ten different live events keep the chyron, PA system, and the in-terminal TV news talking nonstop. ## Why this is mind-blowing It feels like watching a real airport ops console. Boards flip. Gates change. Weather grounds half a wing. A VIP motorcade hits the drop-off. The 6 PM crush stacks at security. Then the day rolls over to Day N+1 with a fresh schedule and a new anchor on the in-terminal news, and the cycle starts again. You can leave it on for hours and watch the storylines emerge.

Prompt

Build a single-file three.js r0.160.0 demo that feels like a 24/7
airport ops dashboard.

Constraints:
- Single HTML file < 200KB. three.js from unpkg only.
- First line of <body>: <!-- ROUND14_LIVING v1 -->.
- IIFE + strict mode. Disposables registry + full reseed every sim day.
- Autoplays forever.

3D world:
- Terminal building with glass roof + pillars. Runway with dashed
  centerline. 10 parked planes at gates, 1 taking off, 1 landing.
  Control tower. Baggage carousel with 18 circling bags. Security
  checkpoints. Gate seating. Food court color blocks. Drop-off road.
- 9 director cams: TARMAC WIDE, RUNWAY 27, DEPARTURE BOARD, SECURITY,
  GATE B07, CTRL TOWER, BAGGAGE, DROPOFF, CONCOURSE — cycle every 10s.

Living world:
- 30 flights generated from 30 airport codes × 20 carriers, with
  gates, times, statuses. Departures/arrivals board flips every 6s.
- 120 InstancedMesh travelers across 6 zones with rolling bags,
  role-coded colors.
- 10 live event types: BOARDING, DELAYED, GATE CHANGE, CANCELLED,
  WEATHER DIVERSION, VIP MOTORCADE, LOST CHILD, AMBER ALERT, TAKEOFF,
  LANDING — wired to chyron + PA + board + TV news.

HUD:
- PRX logo with LIVE pulse. Sky-tinting clock + weather. Departures/
  arrivals board. PNN news PIP with anchor headshot + crawl. PA
  chyron. Ticker. Ops stats. Broadcast EP badge.

Forever loop:
- Every 8 sim minutes the day rolls over with a "DAY N ENDS — DAY N+1
  BEGINS" transition. Reseed schedule, anchor swap, traveler reshuffle.

Paste this into Claude, Cursor, or Copilot. Change one thing that matters to you.

Build a single-file three.js r0.160.0 demo that feels like a 24/7
airport ops dashboard.

Constraints:
- Single HTML file < 200KB. three.js from unpkg only.
- First line of <body>: <!-- ROUND14_LIVING v1 -->.
- IIFE + strict mode. Disposables registry + full reseed every sim day.
- Autoplays forever.

3D world:
- Terminal building with glass roof + pillars. Runway with dashed
  centerline. 10 parked planes at gates, 1 taking off, 1 landing.
  Control tower. Baggage carousel with 18 circling bags. Security
  checkpoints. Gate seating. Food court color blocks. Drop-off road.
- 9 director cams: TARMAC WIDE, RUNWAY 27, DEPARTURE BOARD, SECURITY,
  GATE B07, CTRL TOWER, BAGGAGE, DROPOFF, CONCOURSE — cycle every 10s.

Living world:
- 30 flights generated from 30 airport codes × 20 carriers, with
  gates, times, statuses. Departures/arrivals board flips every 6s.
- 120 InstancedMesh travelers across 6 zones with rolling bags,
  role-coded colors.
- 10 live event types: BOARDING, DELAYED, GATE CHANGE, CANCELLED,
  WEATHER DIVERSION, VIP MOTORCADE, LOST CHILD, AMBER ALERT, TAKEOFF,
  LANDING — wired to chyron + PA + board + TV news.

HUD:
- PRX logo with LIVE pulse. Sky-tinting clock + weather. Departures/
  arrivals board. PNN news PIP with anchor headshot + crawl. PA
  chyron. Ticker. Ops stats. Broadcast EP badge.

Forever loop:
- Every 8 sim minutes the day rolls over with a "DAY N ENDS — DAY N+1
  BEGINS" transition. Reseed schedule, anchor swap, traveler reshuffle.

What I learned shipping it

InstancedMesh + simple state machines = 120 travelers cheap.
A flipping departures board is one of the highest-density story devices in any sim — viewers track flights they don't even care about.
Adding a TV news PIP that reports the same events on a delay makes the world feel watched.