For "just fly" simmers, "Ready to Fly" means a file that you can just unzip into the ..\aircraft directory and the next time you load Flight Simulator, the plane is in the list. Even easier, there are utilities like FSAOM that can automatically install this kind of file.

"Textures Only" is a file that must be assembled, or added, to the original plane. You must find the file ("base model") released by the modeler (and that's not always simple), install, copy the textures folder inside the original plane folder, modify the "aircraft.cfg" file, change the textures folder name and pray for the result to work. [Please note that there are tutorials to help with this sort of thing.]

There are two good reasons and two bad reasons for "Textures Only" repaints. The good ones are: the resulting file is smaller, so you can upload and download it more easily and quickly, and for a modeler, the final user must download the original base model file, so his work becomes well known and very often downloaded.

The bad ones are: if you are a "just fly" simmer, and you don't know about folders, notepad, aircraft.cfg editing, renaming and another niceties, you'll never fly this plane. The second one is that sometimes the original plane can't be found. I have downloaded "Textures Only" files with the legend such as: "for the model of John Doe", but it doesn't say where to get this model or its file name. Sometimes it says: "the model is in the www.plane.plane.plane.com adress", so you open Explorer, insert the adress and get a beautiful "error 404: page not found".

I'm sure that you are now believers of the "Ready to Fly" option. I am too. But it has two problems: the first one, its size. Usually a ten megabyte model has only two or three megabytes of textures. But that's not the real drawback. The real problem is that sometimes the modeler feels that his work is not appreciated, that his original file and texture are not always known. There is at least one file where the repainter put the name of the real modeler but with my email adress--I protested inmediately. But the truth is that a modeler who releases his files with including permission to repaint better known than the other modeler who does not. Because each repaint with his name says that he is so good that we, the repainters, want to work with him. That a model of Mike Stone, Kevin Trinkle or SGA is so good that you can download it and start to repaint without fear of finding some big mistakes in the plane that your work is lost. And for the "just fly" simmers, sooner or later they, as us, will learn who does really good models, and in this moment he will recognize a good modeler by his name no matter if the repainter included the name or not. And, please, don't refuse the joy of a "ready to fly" file to all these simmers. We, the repainters, are aware of the great need that the virtual world has of you, and we will give you proper acknowledgement of your work.

And that's why I put on my knees every night praying that the modelers keep releasing planes giving the permission to publish repaints with the model, panel and everything included. Because the idea of all this is that the many of you, "just fly" simmers, can download and fly these beautiful planes. We, the expert simmers who know how to correct a missing gauge problem, or change a pointer from a bad panel to some favorite one, we can live with "textures only" files. But the ones who are starting to enjoy this world, the ones who will make the future of the modelers and repainters, they can't do it yet.

Well, enough for now. In the next part, we will talk about what's better: fantasy or real planes, newer or vintage ones.

Alejandro Hurtado
dracosist@cantv.net