Starting at a gate or Hangar in Free Flight instead of end of Runway

Is there a way to start other than on the runway when you select Free Flight eg at a gate or hangar? Also can you change the default aircraft and location for free flight?

Dead easy (unless I've misunderstood your question)..:)

Start your free flight then hit key 'Y' to enter slew mode, then just gently waggle and twist your joystick to move the plane to any location on the airfield, then hit 'Y' again to exit slew.

You could now change the aircraft for another type if you want.

Save the flight, then every time you play that saved flight in the future your plane will start at that location.

(TIP- when I save my flights I always type 'aaa' in front of them so that I can see which are mine in the list of saved flights, eg aaa-Kennedy, aaa-Heathrow etc)

 

If you want to create a flight at a different airfield, start a flight then hit 'M' to bring up the map.

Left-click on your aircraft icon and drag it to the new airfield, then exit the map and you should see your plane sitting at the new field.

Save it and away you go..:)

 

PS- before saving flights, you might want to set a new wind speed and direction, time of day, change the weather, zoom level etc, then when you save the flight all those settings will be locked into it every time you play it.

Great , Many Thanks

Or even easier, use the Flight Planner to choose your airport and gate/ramp starting spot after choosing the aircraft you wish to fly.

 

Your decision then is whether to have the aircraft in a running mode or to start in a cold and dark situation.

In the opening screen, click "Select Airport".

In the screen that opens,choose your airport. And on the same screen, on the lower right where it sais "active runway" click that box.

A drop-down opens. With options to choose a different runway, or one of the available gates.

 

Not all airports have gates though. Only the larger ones.

itye1970

 

Just to clarify the comments made by Scatter and Zippy - to make a saved flight the default flight that is loaded at startup you must ensure that the Default Flight option is ticked - it the small box located directly below the saved flights listing - if this box is not ticked FSX will always load the standard default flight options at the start screen - simply highlight the filename of your saved flight and then click the box which will then display a tick.

Here are a couple of screenshots to throw into the playpen-

 

This one is my opening screen, FSX always starts with this one because I've made it my 'Default Flight' like Longbreak mentioned. I can either click 'FLY NOW' at bottom right to go straight to it on the runway, or click a bunch of other buttons to change stuff, but usually I don't want to change anything because everything is already set up how I want it.

However if I want to go to a different flight, I click the 'LOAD' button in the centre row-

 

http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g64/PoorOldSpike/sub2/FSX-free-flight1_zpsfbnshgti.jpg~original

 

 

 

And if I do click that 'LOAD' button, this screen below comes up listing all the flights in my FSX.

I've prefixed all my home-made created flights with 'aaa' so they don't get mixed up with the assorted stock and downloaded flights.

I just select the one I want and click 'FLY NOW' at bott right and away I go.

Notice the 'Make this default flight' button at bottom left, tick it and FSX will always open with whatever flight you've selected like Longbreak said-

 

http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g64/PoorOldSpike/sub2/FSX-free-flight2_zps8jaazenw.jpg~original

In the opening screen, click "Select Airport".

In the screen that opens,choose your airport. And on the same screen, on the lower right where it sais "active runway" click that box.

A drop-down opens. With options to choose a different runway, or one of the available gates.

 

Not all airports have gates though. Only the larger ones.

 

+1

 

The secret to making this work is remembering to change the drop-down box from Active Runway before you start the flight. When I forget, I just end up on the active runway.

 

And yes my default flight is from a parking spot. But when I choose to depart from a different airport or with a different aircraft, the default settings don't apply. That's when I use the drop-down box if I don't want to start my flight on the duty.

I quickly got the hang of starting at a gate when doing multiplayer. If you started on the RW you would immediately get 'kicked' off the server. (disconnected). If you did it often you would get banned for up to several months. (unable to connect at all).

 

Reason? Others already online were landing, and if on the RW you were in the way!

+1

 

The secret to making this work is remembering to change the drop-down box from Active Runway before you start the flight. When I forget, I just end up on the active runway.

 

And yes my default flight is from a parking spot. But when I choose to depart from a different airport or with a different aircraft, the default settings don't apply. That's when I use the drop-down box if I don't want to start my flight on the duty.

 

That's what I've always done. My default flight is at the small Houston Southwest

airport, and my start plane is the trike. But the majority of my flights start at another

airport, often Hobby if I flying out as a Southwest buoy. I then load the plane/flight

number at HSW, and when the plane is loaded, I then use the drop down to select KHOU

and whatever gate I want to use. And many flights will start at out of town airports, and

the same deal for them. Flightaware tells the actual gate they are using real world.