Aircraft characteristics

[AOL]

Can someone please suggest a solution to this? I was flying a BAe Hawk. Then I closed down FS. When I returned I selected a new flight with a Dornier 328. The trouble was that although it looked like a Dornier, and had the right panel, on start-up it sounded like a Hawk, and was vastly over-powered! It is as if the characteristics of a previous aircraft still remain, and have somehow over-written the ones I wanted. I've checked the sound file for the Dornier, and it is a Beechcraft alias, which sounded OK before this trouble started, but I just can't get it back.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

AOL

[alastairmonk]

This may be to do with how you're first starting FS2002. Its usually a good idea to first start-up with the default cessna at Meigs. Then, when the sim has settled down, you can load your plane and scenery of choice.

This default start-up can be found in the Flights\Other folder, so select it and tick the "make this the default flight" box.

This process will minimize any problems you have with non-standard configurations of one plane affecting the next, which is what I suspect has happened here.

Cheers,

Alastair

[AOL]

Thanks Alastair. I tried what you suggested, and I think you are right - for some reason the Dornier assumes the engine sound (and performance) of the last aircraft loaded. But using the Cessna as default didn't do the trick. When I then changed to Dornier and started up, it sounded exactly as you would expect if the Dornier had two Cessna engines. The thing is that the Dornier worked fine for a while. I'm not computer literate enough to go into the doubtless complex files in FS that might hold the key to this. It does sound as if there's something corrupt in the Dornier file, because everything else works fine. Maybe I should download it again.
Thanks again for your suggestion!

Andrew

[alastairmonk]

Hi Andrew,

You may well be right about the Dornier being corrupted, however before you reinstall or re-download, just check the syntax of the alias= statement in the Dornier's Sound folder. It should read something like this:

alias=beech_baron_58\sound

or

alias=beech_king_air_350\sound

In my experience if the folder being referred to is even slightly mis-spelled (eg. alias=beech-baron_58\sound or alias=beech_baron_58/sound) the newly-loaded aircraft will retain the sound of the previous one you're using. The same goes for panels. It only requires one letter or character to be wrong for it not to work.

Cheers,

Alastair

[AOL]

Hi there!

I checked the sound folder but it says:

alias=beech_king_air_350\sound

and I can't see anything wrong there at all. I understand the point you are making, though. The weird thing is that it used to be OK then suddenly developed this glitch. I can't see that reloading the Dornier is going to help if the sound file is OK. I can live without the Dornier, it's just an academic point. There ought to be an obvious solution, but what is it?

Thanks for your endeavours! I don't use the forum much since the very early days, when I needed help for silly little things. Nice to know there are still helpful people out there!

Andrew

[airdale60]

Andrew,

Sounds like you have a good problem to play with.

I would be interested in knowing what aircraft.cfg file gets loaded when load the Dornie. If I'm not in error, the system will default to the previous aircraft that you loaded from the Create Flight mode. I know that version 2k4 does that.

Anyhoo, click on your handy dandy double duty notepad and navigate to the C:\Programs\Microsoft Games\FS2002\Aircraft\Dornier (or whatever) directory. In the "files of type" window click on "all files". Highlight the aircraft.cfg file and open it. Scan through the damned thing and see what your Dornier is supposed to do. You might find out your flying a kite. If your files got mixed up, you'll be ahead to reinstall the aircraft. If you have a problem with that, drop me a line.

airdale60

dendav588@aol.com

[AOL]

Thanks for your advice. I checked the cfg file as you suggested. I really can't see anything wrong with it. There are details about prop rpm, feathering and so forth. All the sections appear to be complete, and resemble those for other aircraft that don't give a problem. At the top there's a line that says

sound=

However it's like that on all the other files. I assume that this leads to the sound file, which, as I say, is OK. And other aircraft have the same line of code. I tried putting in the code from the sound file here, but I just got a corrupted noise that sounded like a Cessna in the distance. Otherwise everything operates normally: the panel is fine, the flaps and undercarriage work. I'll try to find time to reload the aircraft and see what happens!

Thanks again for your help.

Andrew

[alastairmonk]

Hi Andrew,

Interesting ! As a suggestion, you could try to see if it is actually the Sound folder (in this case the one in the King Air) that is the problem.

As you're familiar with the Alias= statement, you could try changing it to something else, say the Beech Baron or Mooney Bravo. If the plane loads with the new sound-set OK (ie. different from the previous plane loaded - I'd suggest loading something quite different so that you can hear the change) but doesn't work with the King Air Sound, it would suggest a fault with the King Air sound set.

If, on the other hand, no sound set works, this would suggest a problem with the plane itself.

Fortunately there are replacement (improved) sound sets for the King Air, so here, at least, there is a fix.

Cheers,

Alastair

[AOL]

Thanks Alastair.
I'm a bit tied up the next day or two but when I have some leisure I'll try this out. Oh, and my BAe 146 now sounds like a Cessna as well! Miracles of modern science, or what?

Andrew