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How To...Download And Unzip Aircraft by Dennis Simanaitis First, most of the new aircraft you might download require BAO/Apollo Flight Simulator Flight Shop (a.k.a. FSFS), an addon program to Microsoft Fltsim 5 (a.k.a. FS5). If you don't have FSFS (or the FSFW95 converter if you're using that sim instead of FS5), these new aircraft won't work (because it was used to design and build them). The only decent one that doesn't need FSFS used to be the DC9 Collection, by Simula. Now, there are rather more non-FSFS aircraft around. You must read aircraft descriptions and be aware of the difference. Now, suppose you have FSFS loaded along with your FS (or it's a non-FSFS aircraft, or you know all about FSW95 conversion). When you download an aircraft it typically arrives in your computer into the directory in .zip format, a compressed form to reduce the download time. A file in zipped form needs to be unzipped using one of several shareware utilities before the computer has access to it. Several of these utilities can be downloaded from FlightSim.Com, including: PKzip v2.04g WinZip Once you have pkz204g.exe, you run it on your hard drive and note that pkunzip.exe is one of the files that comes out of all this. This is the one needed to unzip, or decompress the aircraft file. Suppose the aircraft just happens to be my Bleriot Type XI (heh heh, just a coincidence...) whose download file is called bleriot3.zip. At the c:> prompt, you type pkunzip bleriot3 and the computer unzips the file to yield several decompressed files, including bleriot.doc, bleriot.air and several labeled bleriot.0af, bleriot.1af, bleriot.2af, etc. The .doc file is documentation. Other folks may call theirs .txt or read.me or some such. Print it out and read it. It should describe what files you have and where each should go. It might even sneak in some history or something. Specifically, the file bleriot.air goes into your fltsim5\pilots subdirectory. The files of the form bleriot.?af all go into fltsim5\texture. And you're done. The next time you start fltsim5, you'll find the Bleriot listed among the aircraft; click on it and you're off. And, because you put it into fltsim5\pilots (as opposed to fltsim5\sim, from which it can also be flown) you can even modify its flight dynamics using the Design feature listed under Aircraft. It's all quite straightforward, once you have FSFS, know how to unzip files and move them from place to place. Hope this info helps (and that I didn't leave anything out...). Dennis Simanaitis EngEd@aol.com

How To...Download And Install Scenery by Dennis Simanaitis Installing FS5 scenery is really pretty easy. In general, once scenery is unzipped you can put the .bgl files into fltsim5\scenery and the .r8s and .oavs into fltsim5\texture. And that's all there is to it. The next time you check your Airport Menu, the appropriate airport/scenery will be there. The next time you fly into the region from outside, it's there as well. The complexity (and it isn't really bad) is if you wish to become a scenery whacko such as I am. Then it's worth setting up geographical subdirectories, not for any technical reason, but rather just to organize them for updating/deleting/etc. You can do this at any time down the road or right now when you install one. It's your choice. If you decide to do this, for example, I'd suggest making a subdirectory named fltsim5\amer-w for all add-ons in (you guessed it!) the American West. Then make two subdirectories of this, fltsim5\amer-w\scenery and fltsim5\amer-w\texture. Those .bgls go into \scenery, of course. But I'd keep this \texture subdirectory for region-specialized .r8 and .oav files, not the generic .r8s and .oavs that appear in lots of scenery. Seeing as these generic texture files (things like airpt00?.oav, etc) show up in a lot of scenery, put them once in fltsim5\texture and they're accessible to all subdirectories. The sort of specialized texture files I'd put into \amer-w\texture are things like myairpt.oav or phxzoo.r8 or some such. After downloading a few, it'll become clear which are which. In the meantime, you might keep a list of what textures you've added to fltsim5\texture. Indeed, you can put all texture files into fltsim5\texture. But then it becomes difficult to find one if you want to update it or delete it or something. Okay, so now you have, say, all phoenix.bgls in fltsim5\amer-w\scenery and the texture files wherever appropriate. The next (and last) step is to tell the computer that there's this new scenery area. This you do in the Scenery Library Menu, at the right of the Flt Sim main menu display. This is described in the manual, but to recall it here: Click on Scenery Library. You get a warning message. Click on OK as you DO know what you're doing (well, sort of ...). Then you get a display with a choice down the bottom labeled ADD. Click on it. This gives a rectangle wherein you type, carefully, the "path" to the added scenery: c:\fltsim5\amer-w\scenery\*.bgl or OK. Then you'll find this new area on your scenery master list, at the top, as I recall. Now click on the new area to highlight it, then on EDIT. Here you can rename what actually shows up on the scenery master list, say American West. Also, click to identify it as LOCAL scenery. If it's the first one you're adding, it'll have Priority level 1, above the default Regionals. That's fine. As you add scenery, it's fine to arrange Priorities geographically or in any way you wish. (I believe priorities get touchy only if sceneries overlap: for instance, if you have Phoenix and Arizona as separate add-on batches). Last, there's a box that says ACTIVE. Click on it to activate this scenery. By the way, there are different opinions on this, but I don't activate more than 8-10 local regions at a time. Also, the setup seems sensitive to the length of name for a geographical area; be concise. Then OK, OK, etc. to get back to the Fltsim main menu. Click on airports and Phoenix will be there. Last, be aware that sometimes downloaded airports don't show up in this Airport listing. But they'll be in that default North America list. Hope this helps! Dennis Simanaitis EngEd@aol.com