The panel file should open in Notepad and it should have just two lines in it, saying:

[fltsim]
alias=FSFSConv\panel.Jet.Heavy.4

Basically, all the panel.cfg file is doing is to point at one of the default instrument panels stored in FS2K. When you select the Sabena Boeing 747 aircraft in FS2K, it does a quick read of the panel.cfg file and loads whichever panel it is told to.

The point of all this fiddling about is to point up the fact that the modular nature of Flight Simulator makes it possible for an aircraft to load with just about any panel you want - so if it pleases you to fly a 747 with the default Cessna 182 panel, you can, just by altering the panel.cfg to look like this:

[fltsim]
alias=c182\panel

This sounds totally wacky, but there is method in Microsoft's madness, for once. While it is rare for aircraft files to get seriously big, panels can trespass over the 4 Mb mark these days (don't laugh if you are reading this in 2005 and panels are a minimum of 1.4 Gb, remember I was writing this a long time ago.) So if you are into 747s and you find one panel you really like or want to get familiar with, you can load up the panel once, install six different aircraft, point the alias in every aircraft's panel.cfg file at your favourite panel, and when you are flying no-one will know you are cheating (-: Makes sense now, huh? Incidentally, you can do the same thing with sound, but that will be the subject of the next article in this series. What we are going to do right now is to find a new panel for our 747 and make FS2K load it instead of the default one when we run the plane.

If you aren't connected to the Internet already, fire up your connection and point your web browser at FlightSim.Com. I want you to log on, and then go to the 'search file libraries' page from the main menu, just like we did last time. Pull down the slider in the 'search only file section' drop down until you can select 'FS2000 panels' by left clicking it, then type '747' (without the quotes) in the 'search for text' box. Now left click the 'start search' button.

You will get a list of panels to choose from, each with its own description and picture. Browse through the list using the right hand scroll bar and the 'next 10 files' link down at the bottom of the web page.

We are after a particular file, so I want you to go back to the search page (use the back arrow, or the 'exit list files' link on the web page. Once you are at the search page again, make sure that the 'search for text' box is empty by deleting '747' and type 'tfw744.zip' in the file name box. Check that 'FS2000 panels' is still selected and then click the 'start search' button.

You should get a one-file search result, showing an 880k panel for a 747-400. I want you to download this to the download folder you created in the last session, by clicking the download link above the file description, then clicking 'I accept, start download' on the download copyright page, and selecting your download folder as the destination. Once the download is complete, close your web browser and shut down your Internet link.

If you take a look in your download folder now, you should have two files there. The first is your 747 (b7473sab.zip), the other is the file you just downloaded, tfw744.zip. If you can't see tfw744.zip there, you downloaded it to the wrong directory and you need to use the finder to locate it.

Next I want you to go to your 'Junk' folder and delete everything in it (that's why we call it 'junk'). Then go back to tfw744.zip and double click on the icon. Winzip should show the contents of the file. There should be six files, as shown in the illustration. Three of them have winzip icons next to them, and these are actually zip files within the zip! Make sure you have 'use folder names' checked in Winzip or the files will decompress in an unholy mess which even I will not be able to sort out. Hit the 'extract' button and unzip everything into your junk folder.

Now go check out Junk. All the files should be there. Depending on how you have set up Windows Explorer they may appear in a different order to the illustration. The first thing to do in these circumstances is to RTFM (this being a family web site I can only reveal what this means by private email, as long as you can guarantee to me that you are over the age of 35. In general, this means being familiar with the early works of groups like Fleetwood Mac) by double clicking the file labelled readme. This panel being a product of the Freeware Works, there is a really great set of instructions, but believe me, this is the exception and you won't always get so lucky. The majority of free panels come 'as is' and there are no guarantees. We are going to loosely follow the instructions here, the Junk folder being our temporary directory, but close the readme file for now and stop talking in the back there, you are ruining my concentration.

First step, I want you to open the zip file called gauges.zip. Some of you may see this as a file called 'Gauges' with a little yellow filing cabinet held in a vise. Double click on it to open (apologies again to everyone with single click set-ups, it's my age, you know). You should see something like the illustration. Use the scroll bar on the right just to show how many files are in there, but be careful not to highlight any files inside the Winzip window or those are the only ones you will unpack.

Now press the extract button and use the 'folders/drives' box in Winzip to find the folder where FS2000's gauges live. Assuming you have a standard setup, this means left clicking the little plus sign next to C:, then using the scrollbar to find program files and clicking the plus sign next to that, then scrolling down again to find Microsoft Games and clicking the plus sign next to that, then clicking the plus sign next to FS2000, and then left clicking on the folder you see called 'gauges,' - see the illustration. Resist the urge to click the plus sign next to gauges, or it will become a habit. OK, with gauges highlighted, go to the Winzip icon bar and click 'extract.' There will be a burst of activity. In all probability, Winzip will quietly extract all the files and then go about its business, but you may see a message like this, if you have installed any other panels besides the Microsoft default set.

If you get asked about a file overwrite, you will have to weigh it up yourself. In general, I look at the dates and press no if the file I am overwriting is newer. In this case I would press 'yes' since the file I am overwriting is older.

But as I say, hopefully this won't happen to you. When Winzip is done all the extract dialogs will disappear and the green light will come on again at the bottom right of the Winzip window. You can close Winzip and breath again.

You may be wondering why we have installed the gauges first. Well, in my experience the most common problem people face when installing new panels is forgetting to put the gauges in the \FS2000\Gauges directory, with the result that when the panel loads for the first time they are faced with a bitmap with a series of black holes where the instruments should be. If you install the gauges first you won't forget them.

Now the next step is to install the rest of the panel files. This is a little more complicated than installing the gauges as we are going to have to make a new folder to put them in, deep within the folder structure of FS2000 - but if you have already worked your way through the first article in this series, you should have done this once already. Just make sure you read this carefully, and keep double-checking.

Find your FS2000 directory using Windows Explorer (it should still be open from when you last used it). I want you to click on the plus sign next to the 'aircraft' subfolder in FS2000 and then search through the folders inside 'aircraft' until you see one called 'fsfsconv.' When you click the plus sign - OK, I've had it with saying 'click the plus sign,' from now on I'm going to say 'open' or 'expand,' right? - next to the fsfsconv folder you should see something like this illustration. Fsfsconv is where all the panels lurk, and we are going to add ours to the list. What we need to do is to create a folder inside Fsfsconv called 'panel.747' excluding the quotes of course (and from now on, I'm not going to remind you about that anymore, either!)

So let's go. With fsfsconv open, click on 'file' in Windows Explorer, then highlight 'new' and finally, slide the pointer over to 'folder' and click on that just like you did to create the 747 aircraft folder in the last article.

A new folder will duly appear and I want you to rename it 'panel.747' as shown in the illustration.

The new folder line-up should look like this.

The next thing we need to do is to go back to the Junk folder, and double click 'panel.zip' so that it opens in Winzip. I want you to unzip the contents of this file to C:\Program Files\Microsoft Games\FS2000\aircraft\fsfsconv\panel.747.

I can hear some sharp intakes of breath out there, so I'd better do some explaining. C:\Program Files\Microsoft Games\FS2000\aircraft\fsfsconv\panel.747 is simply the full 'path' name of the folder you just created, the one called panel.747. If you imagine that every single one of those backslashes represents a plus sign you have to click on in Windows Explorer, you can see that this is just a shorthand way of referring you to a particular folder, without saying 'click the little plus sign' six times. So hit the Winzip 'extract' button and go through the directory structure in the dialog that pops up just the way you did before We'll go through it one more time in detail, expand by left clicking the little plus sign next to C:, then using the scrollbar to find program files expand that, then scrolling down again to find Microsoft Games and expand that, then expand FS2000, then expand 'aircraft', then expand 'fsfsconv' and finally, left click on the folder called 'panel.747' so that it is highlighted and hit the extract button. You will almost certainly find that you need to use the horizontal slider to see what you are doing at some stage, because this is a deeply nested folder structure.

We are very nearly there, except that our Sabena 747 is still blissfully unaware that we are going to all this trouble on its behalf and we need to edit its panel.cfg file to let it know which panel it is going to use. So use Windows Explorer to go to the b7473sab folder (which is in C:\Program Files\Microsoft Games\FS2000\aircraft if you get lost.) If you created the association between files ending in .cfg and notepad, panel.cfg should have a little notepad icon, and you can just double click on it to open it automatically in Notepad. If you didn't, go to the back of the class. We are going to do a small hack to this file - because it points to the default Microsoft Panel and no-one wants to be seen dead flying with that. Instead we are going to point it at our new file. As we know already, the panel.cfg belonging to the Sabena 747 points to a default panel, so we are going to edit it to point to our new panel. Delete everything in the original panel.cfg and type this instead:

[fltsim]
alias=FSFSConv\Panel.747

Then click on file, then save and close down notepad.

Okay, now the Sabena 747 knows which panel it is supposed to be flying with and we are set, but what about that 'sounds.zip' file we left in Junk. Oh oh, better go back and deal with that. Good job you were concentrating, huh? Fire up Windows Explorer, open up 'sounds' in Winzip by double clicking on it and you should see something like the illustration.

I want you to unzip those files to C:\Program Files\Microsoft Games\FS2000\sound and this time, you are on your own with Winzip, because you ought to know how to use it by now, but take a look at the graphic here if you get stuck. What this manoeuvre does is to stick a whole bunch of sounds which are associated with the panel in the right place.

We should have the show on the road now, so start up FS2000, select the Sabena 747 and was it worth it? Well if you don't like the result, there are plenty of other panels out there. Be my guest and try 'em all!

Trouble Shooting

Still having problems? There are a couple of common mistakes that people make plus outside problems that may need to be resolved. For help with the most common difficulties read this additional information.

Andrew Herd
andrew.herd@btinternet.com