My C-119 kit is ready for me to turn some attention to the diorama.
Here's the scene. I've built my C-119 as troup carrier and I am going to place it on a tarmac with all the doors open. Flight crew heading through the front door and a platoon of serivice men boarding through the rear doors up scratch built loading steps.

I want to build a base of concrete tarmac. My first thought was to use a thin layer of styrene as the concrete. I am going to scribe/etch in seams in a basic rectangle pattern. I am going to paint in two or three tones of gray. Seams in a black/dark color. Add rubber scuffs, spills, stains etc. all over.

My delema is - how big (width length) to make the concrete rectangels?? I have a scale converter so feedback in any scale is cool.
Thanks in advance

I have a few sheets of the Verlinden cardstock tarmac in 1/72 scale. Their sections are 2 inches by 2 5/8 inches.

I work at a large international civil airport.
I sent a mail to our engineering dept. to get more info on the exact sizes of concrete slabs. The size is probably inspired by the size of the machines that are used to pour the concrete...

Jan

Concrete slabs are five by ten meters, often "cut" by a seem into square slabs of five by five meters.
Each piece is numbered (letters for rows, figures for colums - a bit like the cels in an exell spreadsheet - e.G. AA01, AF23,... ) The numbers are "written" in the corner of each slab, while the concrete is still wet.
Between two slabs, there's generally a seem. Sometimes seems are filled with a black, rubbery substance, but mostly they are not.
Sections of the airport that are not frequently used, often have weeds growing in the seems between two concrete slabs. The odd weed makes your diorama more interesting and realistic...

Jan

GeneralFailure - Awsome detail. That's some very good information! Thanks
Sabot - Great deal, thanks

The sides, most of all the corners tend to "break to pieces" after some time.
This means that occasionaly, you must clean the area, not to have pebbles of concrete flying
around the place.
But I don't know if it would be visible in 1/72nd...

Are these not two different things? Concrete is sand and cement mixed while tarmac is is chips and a thick burnt black oily substance. Not being pernickity, just a thought.
What I notice is that most runways are made from tarmac and off runway is the concrete .

Sarge,

you're right, but I think Slodder meant by using "Tarmac" the parking and maintenance place for vehicles and didn't refer that much to the specific material itself...

I might be wrong here.....only slodder knows...

Here I'll provide the answer for you. Yup!
I am looking for the maintenance/loading area used during preflight.

More information is always good. It can never hurt.

Thanks again, everyone.

OK Sarge, you want to play it touchy ?
Just don't forget to add some water to sand and cement...

Now comes a serious question : when you build something in concrete, you often add some steel "frame" in it.
Is this used in the concrete sheets of airports ? Would the construction of these sheets be different on civilian and
military airfields (to improve reparability after a bomb hit) ?