Flap's Flap

What is the purpose of Flap’s Flap? Well, I’ll be pointing your way towards interesting add-ons that I come across for Flight Simulator, basically the FS2004. I’m sorry for all you X-Plane or Fly! users out there, but I’m convinced Microsoft is the best and that is what I’m sticking with. I’ll also be offering you flight ideas. How many of us have sat in front of the computer with spare time and stared at the Flight Planner in FS2004 and thought, okay, what now? If you have any blanks in that area you will be able to help fill in those voids with that section. I am sorry to say that this is not an article to be used to help to fix flight simulation problems, but I will offer advice if I come across any of my own problems and find a fix, it will be published here so that the rest of you may know how to take care of that problem (if it is occurring on your system).

My first article of Flap’s Flap will be discussing the add-on world. How many of us have used an add-on over and over again in FS2002 and realized that it disappointingly did not work? Well, I found some suitable replacements for aircraft from the Abacus Corporate Pilot for FS2002. I was disappointed when I found out that Abacus was NOT planning on updating those aircraft, so I scoured the Internet looking for suitable replacements and found replacements for all of them, though I do not own ALL of them yet. I have five of the six, as you recall were in the order of the Beechcraft Starship, Beechcraft Beechjet 400A, Cessna 441 Conquest II, Citation X, Dassault Falcon 2000 and also the Rockwell Commander. I have everything BUT the Beech Jet, which I’m going to be getting very, very, soon. Unfortunately, with the release of Star Wars on DVD this week I figured that was enough personal spending for one week. I can assure you though, being made by the same people that made the Citation X, Eaglesoft Development Group, it should be a suitable replacement.

I can not take credit for this next little tip however. It was passed along to me on the forums here, and I wish I could remember the person's name, but to whoever you were, thanks a bunch! It helped! The thing I found disappointing with some of the aircraft that you download is that the aircraft themselves don’t have complete panels. Here’s a workaround to the situation:

First, you must have your Abacus Corporate Pilot program installed into FS2002. You will need to transfer files from those folders. The only fall back with this method is that some of the panels won’t be visible, like the ones that you clicked on to view switches and auto pilot panel in the Beechcraft Starship. If anyone has a work around for that, please let me know, I’d appreciate it, and even publish the update in a future article. Here’s the planes that you will have to do this to in order to have nice panels like the ones from Abacus’s Corporate Pilot. You will need for a replacement of the Dassault Falcon 2000, you can download Mike Stone’s Dassault Falcon, which is a very nicely done, and also Mike Stone’s Beechcraft Starship.

How do I do the panel swap you ask? Well, here’s how it’s done. First of all, you will need to have Abacus Corporate Pilot installed and running in FS2002 with the update for it. We will be using the Beechcraft Starship as an example.

Open FS2004 in the Program Files and go to the aircraft Folder where your Mike Stone’s Beechcraft Starship is located. Find the panel folder, open it. You will see that there is a panel configuration in there, ignore that minimize that window and go to the Abacus’s Corporate Pilot Beechcraft Starship folder and open that as well. Copy the files of the Panel Folder in the Abacus Corporate Pilot Beechcraft Starship and paste them into the Mike Stone’s Beechcraft Starship. Don’t worry about over writing the CFG file, it will not be needed from the Mike Stone model, but always make a back up just in case!. After that has been performed, go over to the FS2002 Gauges folder and copy all gauge files that start with HTL. And should be followed by the aircraft name, like Starship, or Commander. Paste all gauge files into your FS2004 gauge file folder.

Now you’re ready to start FS2004, select the Beechcraft Starship and you’re ready to go! This is what you should see:

Abacus' Corporate Pilot Beechcraft Starship; back in the days, a nice plane

Mike Stone's Beechcraft Starship; a suitable replacement

Another aircraft that I always had loved with Corporate Pilot was the Conquest II. I was highly disappointed when that one didn’t work with FS2004 because of Gmax being the main modeling program, and the animation for the propellers did not show up. There is another very excellent, high quality substitute out there, Flight1 Software’s Conquest II. I’m sure you’ll be just as pleased at what Flight1 packed into this little plane, from the detailed exterior to the interior accents, it’s truly a flightsimmer’s delight.

Abacus Corporate Pilot Conquest II

Flight1's Conquest II; a very nice substitute

The other plane that you will need to do the panel swap with is the Dassault Falcon 2000. Just follow the steps above as you did with the Conquest II, and you will get the panel to work properly. The only problem is a missing gauge in the panel, but if you can live with it, that’s fine. All the main important ones are there. Like I stated earlier, Mike Stone’s Dassault Falcon is very nicely done and is located at his own website, or here at FlightSim.Com under SFALCON.ZIP.

Corporate Pilot's Dassault Falcon

Mike Stone's Dassault Falcon; a panel swap is needed for this nice corporate jet

I know a lot of you out there already know of Eaglesoft’s excellent Citation X business jet, the ever so popular Cessna that can sweep its passengers away to 43,000 feet just 30 minutes after take off and cross country in under 4 hours from New York to Los Angeles - this plane is the ULTIMATE substitute for any of the aircraft for Corporate Pilot. If you were looking for your favorite, and this plane was it - don’t hesitate to purchase Eaglesoft’s Citation X. I’m sure you will think the small $24.95 price tag is really worth it. No worries about animations not showing up here like the Abacus’s Corporate Pilot Citation X in FS2004, no sir. Everything shows as it should, and is in perfect life like detail, right down to the passenger in the virtual cabin in the Deluxe Edition. (Included in the package are different models of detail for system dependant performance.)

Nice for its time but still works for FS98, FS2000 and FS2002 users

Eaglesoft Citation X--look at the detail!

The last two aircraft are really some that I did not fly that often in Corporate Pilot. One I don’t own the replacement for yet but am going to eventually, is Eaglesoft’s Beechjet 400A. I’m sure that just the same with the Citation, its quality will be right up there with the award winners of the flight simulation world.

However, one that I did manage to find here at FlightSim.Com is a Commander by Milton Shupe, Scott Thomas and Andre Folkers. Unsure if this is the correct model by Abacus, but a suitable replacement. If you were a Commander fan out there, this one’s for you! No panel swap needed, as is out of the default package is fine. There are two to choose from on FlightSim.Com, with a virtual cockpit or with out. Your choice for the taking.

Rockwell Commander from Abacus Corporate Pilot; a nice turboprop though very seldom flown by me

The Commander by Milton Shupe, Scott Thomas and Andre Folkers; reflective textures and Gmax model bring a nice update to FS2004

My system settings for Flight Simulator 2004.

Performance on computer systems will vary so please don’t email me about my FPS too slow if I mention them on mine. Computer system for this article and all others of Flap’s Flap is the following: Dell Dimension 4600 2.66 GHz Pentium 4 Processor 512MB RAM 128MB Nvidia GeforceFX 5200 AGP 8X Graphic Card 19" Flat Screen Monitor Altec Lansing Surround Sound Speakers Go-Flight Cockpit Control System Saitek X36F Flight Controller and X35T (Throttle)

Next time in Flap’s Flap we’re going to be discussing some interesting “Flight Seeing” tour flights of our Virtual USA to even offer some history of the areas that are being visited. You’re more than welcome to travel along with me in any flight simulator of your liking, whether you are using FS98, FS2000, FS2002, FS2004, Fly! Fly II! or even X-Plane. I’m going to start to be exploring more than just our great USA - if any of you can think of areas that you have always wanted to visit in real world but have not had a chance to - email me. I can help make your dreams come true, if only virtually. Until then, keep the blue side up and happy flying!

Also, in case you are wondering what my graphical settings are for FS2004, here you go:

Inspired by my article? Have any tips that you have discovered during the years, any questions or concerns? Email me at ragtopjohnny01@aol.com. I will print them in future issues of Flap’s Flap.

Now, for some light legal stuff:

Flap’s Flap does not accept any responsibility for varied performance in systems. Please note my system specs and the display properties work fine with MY system. Set your display properties accordingly to your computer. Also, with any How To items that are given in these articles, please use at your own risk! I will hold no responsibility to any damage done to your system. And, as always, remember: Back up your files before changing them!

John J. Thuot II
ragtopjohnny01@aol.com