Removing stock airport

Private field "Brandt" 55IL in Manteno, IL no longer exists in real life.

 

He died, and the field was allowed to grow wild and last time I looked over there it appeared as if the neighboring farmer had planted crops there.

 

It's in a BGL file that includes multiple airports. When I wanted to get rid of a stock airport that was causing problems with an AFCAD mod once, I found that it had several other airports in the same file so I simply opened all of those airports, saved them as mods (after correcting their inaccurate magvar) in add-on scenery, then deleting the stock BGL file.

 

That worked fine except 55IL is in AP924170.BGL and as far as I can tell, it contains every airport in Illinois, Indiana and Michigan. It would take weeks to open & save all of them one at a time with AFCAD to preserve them while deleting AP924170.BGL.

 

I tried an exclusion switch BGL because somewhere I read that the "excludeAllObects="TRUE" line will get rid of airports. It doesn't.

 

 

I got on Microsoft's SDK site and found a section where it explains that I can make a BGL using the following script in an XML file, drag it onto BGLCOMP.EXE and pop it in an addon scenery folder:

version="9.0"
xmlns:xsi='http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance'
xsi:noNamespaceSchemaLocation="bglcomp.xsd">

      region="North America"
     country="United States"
     state="Illinois"
     city="Manteno"
     name="Brandt"
     lat="41.277810"
     lon="-87.822266"
     alt="207.3"
     magvar="-1.0"
     ident="55IL">

      deleteAllApproaches = "TRUE"
     deleteAllApronLights = "TRUE"
     deleteAllAprons = "TRUE"
     deleteAllFrequencies = "TRUE"
     deleteAllHelipads = "TRUE"
     deleteAllRunways = "TRUE"
     deleteAllStarts = "TRUE"
     deleteAllTaxiways = "TRUE"
     deleteAllBlastFences = "TRUE"
     deleteAllBoundaryFences = "TRUE"
     deleteAllControlTowers = "TRUE"
     deleteAllJetways = "TRUE"/>

 

Basically what happened when I tried that is when I hit "pause" on my keyboard to see what the momentarily visible command prompt window was saying, it was full of errors and it basically threatened to kill me and eat my children if I tried it again. Every single line of data was preceded with "error".

 

Any ideas?

You simply open the ADE and deleted everything. Then you save it as f.i. "55IL_exclude". If there are some default buildings, they could be deleted with ExcBuilder.

 

Bernard

Or you can also create the exclude file right in ADE.

 

My procedure for removing airports:

 

You can get pretty close, but the ILS's will remain on the Map.

 

1. Open the airport in AFCAD (or ADE), and use the View menu to make EVERYTHING visible (navaids, start locations, etc.)

 

2. Zoom out so you can get it all, then draw a box around the whole thing. Press the delete key. AFCAD will tell you it can't delete various things. Say OK. (ADE: Hold down the R key and draw the box. It will not remove the runways. Delete them individually. Say yes to orphaning any ILSs.)

 

3. AFCAD: Double click each green ILS arrow and change the frequency to 000.00 and rename it to DO NOT USE. Change the heading to 0 and uncheck everything.

 

4. Turn off the navaids view.

 

5. AFCAD: Press the L key to to go to night time. Draw the box again and delete it all again.

 

6. Go to Lists/Frequencies and delete everything. This will eliminate it from ATC listings.

 

7. Right click on a blank area of the airport, and in the Airport Properties box change the Airport Name to something like CLOSED, or DO NOT USE, or give the name of the airport with (Closed) after it. Whatever you want to see on the Map and airport listings.

 

8. Save the file as something like AF2_VTBD_removed or VTBD_ADE9_removed. Do NOT try to overwrite the default AP file. See #10 before saving if using ADE, and then compile the file as well.

 

9. Place a copy of the AFCAD (ADE) file into the Scenery/World/scenery folder so your name changes appear in the Go To Airport listing.

 

10. Using ExcBuilder or ADE, create an exclude file/rectangle covering the entire airport and check all boxes *except* for ALL. We want the autogen to remain.

 

 

You will still see the now useless ILS's in the Map, but it will be gone just about everywhere else.

 

Hope this helps,

So will the airport icon still show up on the map and in the GPS? That's really what I wanted to get rid of. I couldn't care less if the grass strip is still visible. There's too many airports in the Chicago area & it clutters up the GPS screen. Sure I can de-clutter it with the CLR button but that removes things I do want to see, like ILS feathers.

 

Brandt is nothing but a reference point and a grass strip. No parking, no taxiways, nodes, paths, etc. No navaids, not even a comm frequency.

 

Same thing with Wilhelmi Field (0C3). It's been gone for years. Yuppies needed more houses.

Yes, it will still be there.

Can ADE move the airport in FS9 to the arctic boonies (FS lattitude limit) and will it affect the GPS and other maps?

Can ADE move the airport in FS9 to the arctic boonies (FS lattitude limit) and will it affect the GPS and other maps?

 

I can't get ADE to download, so I don't know.

ADE will not remove the field from the map or the GPS.

 

There is no real good way to do that.

 

BTW, your code did not compile because it has FSX elements in it that the FS9 BGLComp.exe knows nothing about.

 

It's all moot anyway, that code will not remove the airport from the map or the GPS.

 

peace,

the Bean

If someone wanted to spend an enormous amount of time saving copies of all airports included in that BGL file (IL, IN and MI) would they even be able to upload a zip containing all those AFCAD files for others to use, or would it be a copyright violation since each one would essentially be a copy of the ones created by Microsoft?

If someone wanted to spend an enormous amount of time saving copies of all airports included in that BGL file (IL, IN and MI) would they even be able to upload a zip containing all those AFCAD files for others to use, or would it be a copyright violation since each one would essentially be a copy of the ones created by Microsoft?

I would first question the value of going to all of the trouble to do so.

 

FTR, in your first post you mentioned that you changed the magvar in the afcad. Just so you know, that did not really work.

 

FS does not get it's magvar from the airport records, it comes from another file named magdec.bgl located in ...\FS9\Scenery\BASE\Scenery.

 

You could certainly upload the afcad collection if you wished. Someone will download it.

 

Seems like a lot of effort just to remove couple airports from the map and GPS.

 

peace,

the Bean

I would first question the value of going to all of the trouble to do so.

 

FTR, in your first post you mentioned that you changed the magvar in the afcad. Just so you know, that did not really work.

 

FS does not get it's magvar from the airport records, it comes from another file named magdec.bgl located in ...\FS9\Scenery\BASE\Scenery.

 

You could certainly upload the afcad collection if you wished. Someone will download it.

 

Seems like a lot of effort just to remove couple airports from the map and GPS.

 

peace,

the Bean

 

The magvar setting in airport files is just a reference. It doesn't change the magvar for that location, correct.

 

I've made a simple little gauge that simply shows the magvar for current location, showing hundredths. I round it to the nearest tenth in AFCAD because it only allows tenths. But I usually open a destination airport in AFCAD simply to get it's runway heading and I always find that it's inaccurate when I get there & am lining up for the runway. That's why I put a digital magvar gauge in one of the Cessnas just as a reference to use when updating the airport files. I also made an HSI gauge that shows both magnetic and true headings with a decimal and tenths.

 

I think it's called "obsessive compulsive disorder".

 

The reason I wanted to get rid of an airport that no longer exists is just to declutter the map and GPS. But it's too much hassle.