BobSeaman

You didn't say which OS you're running, but these programs will still run in Win10: nav30.zip- Uses an older database of airports and nav stations but it will get you by and you can easily insert fix info. Nav flight plans can be converted to: acsgps20.zip- You'll need to know how to install gauges in 2D panels but ACS-GPS is one of the easiest GPS programs going. Either select a "canned" waypoint or type in the DEG MIN SEC data manually and upload it to the gauge. ACS gets along well with the autopilot in FS2002 and FS9 but the gauges may not update if you install them in the virtual cockpit (2D cockpit works fine). Nav also has some nice built-in functions such as a moving map that tracks your position. When I want to add an aircraft carrier to FS9 and I need to plot the "trap zone", I just use Slew to position the plane on the corners of the zone I want, then run Nav and let it auto-track my position and the co-ords are already displayed in the proper format. As mentioned above, you can plot out a flight path in Nav and convert it to an ACS-GPS plan but I haven't tried to convert one to an FS9 flight plan. :confused:

Almost forgot, http://www.fs-shipyards.com/ No sign of the Kuznetsov for FS9 yet. :p

I had similar problems with Object Placer. I wound up installing the program in the same, overall, directory as my FS install (My fs install is C: FS9, Object Placer is also C: Object Placer in its own folder. The other trick is to right-click the .exe for Object Placer and set it for Win XP SVC Pack 2 and Run As Admin. Your mileage may vary, but give it a try. :) Also, Object Placer seems to be finicky when it cones to re-compiling an XML file. If I want to re-do an older XML, I always have to start the placer with "create new BGL" then load in the old XML. Last, where are you putting your BGL files? In theory they could go anywhere but I put mine in the Add on Scenery folder's Scenery folder.

Chris; You're looking for the "CV-16 Liaoning" or "Admiral Kuznetsov" scenery. I'm getting the feeling that its un-obtainium for FS2004 however it was payware from Alphasim and IRIS at one time. That ski-jump bow makes the ship tricky for FS2004, I'm not sure how they modelled it. You can find an example included with the (payware) Bear Studios J-15 Naval Flanker at Just Flight HOWEVER its listed as scenery for ONLY FSX with the old Tacpack or P3D. :p If you don't mind going the payware route, you can try searching for old FS2004 add-ons at Amazon or EBay and maybe you'll get lucky. :pilot: Good hunting!

Sometimes it comes down to leaning out the engines and setting the right pitch for the props. :pilot: Usually, your "default" settings for piston engines involves max mixture and min prop pitch, but not always. It also matters where you want to take off from. If your field is at a 5,000 foot elevation it can make a big difference. Christopher also makes a great point about the fuel load, at the end of the day its all about what Mr. Scrub was trying to model in his dynamics. When in doubt, read those README docs again.

One more carrier, but this one is a little rugged. :eek: From FS2000, the USS Kitty Hawk(CV-63) south east of Tokyo Bay. Just install the files like normal scenery to your add-on folder and enable it within the sim. This is old scenery so you'll be seeing a lot of stuff floating near the flight deck (swim call?) but hey, its a carrier and you can land on it. :) WESTPAC-ho! :cool: File: cv-63v4.zip Location: N 34 04 15 E 140 25 00 Heading: 085 NAV 1: 108.00 (don't trust the ILS, just treat it like a suggestion) NAV 2: 109.00 NDB : 801.0 Add the following to your ARRCAB dat file (like the post above). +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ [ZoneXX] CarrierIdent=CV-63 near Tokyo FrontRightCornerLat=34.07051 FrontRightCornerLon=140.416750 FrontLeftCornerLat=34.070967 FrontLeftCornerLon=140.416703 BackLeftCornerLat=34.07090 BackLeftCornerLon=140.416207 BackRightCornerLat=34.070660 BackRightCornerLon=140.416262 DeckAltInFeet=69.12 CableCatchZoneHeightInFeet=2.8 RunwayHeadingInDegreesMag=085 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Trap zone and catapult data for the USS Stennis located near San Diego (cv_74.zip). Just add the following to your ARRCAB or RCBO dat file to enable "traps and shots". ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ [ZoneXX] CarrierIdent=CVN-74 near San Diego FrontRightCornerLat = 32.617205 FrontRightCornerLon = -117.170786 FrontLeftCornerLat = 32.616998 FrontLeftCornerLon = -117.170812 BackLeftCornerLat = 32.61692 BackLeftCornerLon = -117.170518 BackRightCornerLat = 32.617180 BackRightCornerLon = -117.170488 DeckAltInFeet = 72.00 CableCatchZoneHeightInFeet = 2.4 RunwayHeadingInDegreesMag = 264 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ If you need more info: Locate your .DAT file for ARRCAB or your RCBO gauge package. For ARRCAB users, open your ARRCAB folder and locate ArrestorCables.dat. Open the .DAT file by highlighting it then right click and select Open With and Notepad. Copy everything between the +++++++++ lines above, then paste the data into your .dat file. BE SURE to change [ZoneXX] to the next number in your .dat file (ie, [Zone34] ). Save the changes to the .dat file, start FS and select a jet then select "sten" as an airport ICAO. This should place you on the deck of the Stennis. Start ARRCAB and you should see a green data line saying your nearest carrier is CVN-74 near San Diego. Line up for a cat shot (, hit your parking break and run up the engines. Tap your break button and hold on tight. :pilot: Note that your course should be set to 264 degrees prior to trapping. I set up the trap zone to fall between the first and fourth wires.

As an honorable mention, try Premier's LJ 60: https://www.premaircraft.com/ The flight dynamics are quite accurate (the LJ 60 is larger than the LJ 45 and it tends to drive more like a truck) and the install is pretty much all inclusive (install it and fly). The only thing I added were some more repaints and some interior lighting effects. The sound package is quite nice as well. :cool:

Alpha AH-64 ? Alphasim Ah-64 ? Virtavia AH-64 ? I'm good at wild ###ed guesses. :cool: Was this Alpha/Virtavia or were you downloading from one of those back-alley sites? :rolleyes: If you have FS Repaint loaded, normally you could load the a/c then get the file path from the texture files. In this case, I'm guessing (again) it may have been used as AI?

I have the V5 KC-135Rs installed in Fs2002 and FS2004. :cool: Until I read your post, I didn't know V6 came out so I D/L'd the new base pack. I haven't really dug into any changes between V5 and V6, but both versions seem very similar. Why are you looking for V5? :confused:

As far as not "following the line", check if the AP is dealing with cross winds. ;)

Its listed on Virtavia's Alphasim freebies page. :D

:cool: That's great news! Take it easy and only answer four FS9 questions per day. :D :pilot:

Be careful, that ET2SN guy can be a little flakey. :cool: :D Some people claim that he spent too much time brushing his teeth at Test Depth. Others will say that a shipyard did him in. But those in the know might tell you it was a dual channel INS that really didn't want to be a dual channel INS that did him in. Just make sure you don't have any cold beer in your fridge if he comes over. :p

It wound up pretty good. :cool: On the one hand, it was about 45 minutes from Ellsworth to the area I picked. Then it was 8 hours to nowhere. :p Then another 45 minutes back to base. I can at least understand why most of the paint on an EC-135's inst panel may have been scratched off. ;) Here's where it gets odd- MAIW add all kinds of goodies to their AI packages. In this case it includes marked restricted MOAs on the FS map and GPS. There's a (real) MOA just to the south of the box I mentioned above, like within 10 miles of the box I picked out. Today, its controlled by the South Dakota ANG, back in the 1980's- who knows? :rolleyes: I might have been closer than I thought. Looking Glass was an Air Force-only deal before the E-6 came on line. The Navy ran its own program called TACAMO (TAke Charge And Move Out) mostly using C-130s. That's something I can't speculate about, I did my time on attack subs for six years. :cool: I haven't done it in a while, but you can google the location of the silos and control centers and display them on Google Earth. :)

BTW, thanks for the head's up on the sale. :cool: I got the WOP P-51 and FW190D packages. Depending on your system, display, and graphics card, you might want to add the following line in aircraft.cfg under every "texture=" line for the P-51s: prop_anim_ratio=2.43174 This mostly keeps the prop and spinner textures from "strobing" (not moving) when the engine is turning at 3,600 RPM. :) I have my FS locked at 60Hz frame rate but the number above should also work for 30Hz.

Small world, I found the WOP WWII Bombers package on Amazon and bought it to see if I could "harvest" any parts for FS2002. That didn't work out, so I wound up getting FS 2004 just to see what the fuss was all about. :D I'm still wondering if I want to buy the P-51 package. :confused:

I had a very similar problem with some JF airports I bought. If you have an older PC kicking around that runs an older version of Windows (XP, Vista, etc.), install it to that machine then copy the files to a thumb drive, blank DVD, whatever you have to record data and then transfer the files manually to your current PC. If the installer allows it, try to install everything to an empty folder on the desktop. You'll see all of the subfolders that way and it will be easier to do the manual installation. Virtavia has a nice freeware Vulcan from back when they were Alphasim. http://www.virtavia.com/Freeware/ Check the files here and you'll find at least a couple of sound file sets for that Vulcan howl.

With Christmas here, I started figuring out what kind of flight I would want to try in FS2004. If you grew up during the Cold War, you remember the Air Force PSA that ran every Christmas Eve in the US. NORAD was tracking Santa and his sleigh, just in case he was really a Commie on his way to bomb the country. Hey, it was the Cold War. We were all a little paranoid. ;) Along with NORAD, there was also a mention about Operation Looking Glass which kept at least one plane in the air continuously from Feb. 3rd, 1961 to July 24th, 1990. I looked at the box the CDs came in. Hmm.. "A Century of Flight", wasn't Looking Glass fairly important during those years? Even though these flights were (and still are) highly classified, could I re-create one of them? Figuring out how to fly an authentic Looking Glass mission can be tricky, but it can be done. Let's start with the basics, we'll need the plane and a base from where the missions were flown. Turning to Wikipedia, we can look up "Operation Looking Glass" and find out a lot about these missions. Most were flown from Offutt AFB (KOFF) but there were also missions flown from Ellsworth AFB (KRCA). All of these missions used a variant of the KC-135 called an EC-135. This is not the same as the E-4B, a highly modified 747. Those missions are known as Nightwatch and are hardly ever flown. Looking Glass missions have been described as lasting somewhere around eight hours per plane. We can also figure out that while Looking Glass could direct manned bombers, its main purpose was to communicate with ICBM launch sites and, if needed, could remotely launch the missiles. So, let's take what we know and put together a package of files for FS. For the base, I'll install the Ellsworth AFB B-1B package from MAIW. This has a nice scenery update plus an AFCAD update for taxi and parking. MAIW also has a nice rendition for Offutt AFB, so we might as well install that as well. For the plane, I'll use the EC-135 downloads (base package plus repaints, panel and sounds) from Historic Jetliners Group, which already has a nice repaint of an EC-135 from KRCA. Now, the tricky part begins.. We know the flights lasted "around" eight hours and the primary mission dealt with ICBM launch sites. We can also throw in a couple of curve balls. The first is that the planes would want to be fairly close to the missile launch centers (not so much the silos themselves) but not so close that an attack could take them out. We also know the planes carried a SAC General plus their Battle Staff (senior officers and enlisted). What we DON'T know, and unless you know someone who flew on Looking Glass missions and is willing to talk about it, what we won't be able to find out, is how or where to fly them. We can still go back to Wikipedia and search for US ICBM missile bases. I kept my search based only on the Minuteman sites and came up with the following: Minot AFB- 48 25 N 101 21 W F.E. Warren AFB- 41 08 N 104 52 W Malmstrom AFB- 47 30 N 111 11 W Grand Forks AFB- 47 58 N 97 24 W Whiteman AFB- 38 44 N 93 33 W Ellsworth AFB- 44 09 N 103 04 W Next, its handy to have a flight planner that uses a map background and can display positions based on user input. I've used a program called Nav (for FS2002) for many years and its very handy for this job. Plotting out the base locations (and ignoring the positions for the silos for now), you'll start to get a feel for what this area looks like. Just by doing a rough approximation for where the center of this area is located, Pierre S.D. starts to stand out. Looking at the display on Nav some more, and you'll start to see some VORs within this area. I settled on the following: Mitchell MHE 109.20 Aberdeen ABR 113.00 Lemon LEM 111.40 Philip PHP 108.40 With Pierre PIR 112.50 roughly in the middle. Flying to each VOR results in a box with a 520 nMi perimeter. This should take just about one hour per lap. It should be noted that the same VORs would be just as valid for missions flown from Offutt. So, almost everything is in place. What else do I need? For starters, SAC worked in Zulu (or GMT) time. There's a handy clock gauge in Alphasim/Virtavia's freeware B-1B that cycles between local time and Zulu. Its also a "wind up" clock which adds to the realism. Looking Glass aircraft HAD to be rugged in case their Deterrence mission failed, which is also why the panel should use "steam gauges" for the primary flight displays. Now, I have my panel set up, somewhere to fly, and an accurate clock. Its getting down to the nitty gritty and its time to do some quick flying to test everything out. Which brings up the next problem, where should this plane be parked? There aren't many clues, but it turns out to be an easy problem to figure out. For starters, the B-1s are parked on the north west side of the ramp. There's an old "christmas tree" area south of the main ramp, but the plane which could control the Alert Force wouldn't park in the same place as those aircraft, it had a totally different (but related) mission and needed at least the same amount of security. That still left some possibilities. So, the Commander of each Looking Glass flight was a General who was senior enough to command all of SAC's assets if needed. Yeah, Bob. Think like a General.. The answer became very clear. On the MAIW AFCAD for KRCA, East Parking, spot #113. Secure and an easy walk to the plane. What good are perks if you can't use them? :cool: At this point I fired up the sim and loaded the plane at KRCA, spot #113. Called the tower and set Progressive Taxi on to check the pathway. Perfect. Flew some circuits to get used to the pattern and then landed. Called ATC again and requested to taxi to East parking. I got directed (prog taxi, again) to taxi to East Parking, spot #24. This is a nice recovery area considering the plane and its mission. Where you get directed is also a bit out of our control. We can use the same parking codes the AI uses, but FS will still direct us to park at the closest spot we can fit into. So, at this point I'm calling it "good" or at least "good enough". All that's left is to load the plane with 12-16 hour's worth of gas (the EC-135 had both a refueling boom AND a refueling receptacle so it could either offload or take fuel), and 12-16 hours sounds like a good ballpark figure. I also have a VERY basic flight plan programmed for my GPS. I use ACS-GPS in both FS2002 and FS2004 as my "Hey, Nav?" gauge for Air Force jets. This allows me to fly "Air Force style" or "Due Regard" versus flying under FS ATC when its needed. Looking Glass flights were very serious but also very fun for the flight crew. For starters, your #1 passenger is also your General (who signs off on your fitness report for promotions) so flying the plane "tight" is a good thing. However, once you're in position to begin your Looking Glass "watch", you own the sky around you. At this point ATC can't touch you and you're on your own. Timing to way points is very loose, in fact you want to use some random moves or maybe practice deploying the ELF wire from the belly of the plane. Pick one of the VORs and fly toward it, or just keep turning laps. As long as the General stays happy, you're golden. :D So, I'm all set to run my first logged, long duration flight in FS9 tonight. All that was left was picking out a dramatic "General-esque" call sign. I started EditVoicepack to see what was available and combined that with the last two digits of the tail number, this flight will be ABSOLUTE 83. :cool: Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays, now go fly something. :pilot:

One of the fun things about Fairchild (if you're a masochist) is flying the KNOCK/RWY 23 TACAN approach as a pattern circuit for touch-n-go's: https://aeronav.faa.gov/d-tpp/2013/00553T23.PDF Its even more of a hoot if you're flying the pattern at night or in low viz. It takes a while to get it dialed in, and I've flown it a lot, but every now and then I'll still find myself flaring over the runway... at KGEG. :o It gets better, KSKA and KGEG share the same outer marker (NDB "GEE") which is the final turn point for RWY 23. In other words, ALWAYS trust your HSI and course marker. KGEG looks "to good to be true" after flying the KSKA pattern for a while. :pilot:

:cool: Thanks a bunch. :D I was considering "rolling my own" but MAIW has a pretty good selection, just none of the oddballs. I was thinking "HEAT" wouldn't be that tough to cobble together but now that I think about it "EET" wouldn't be that common.

:confused: So, I load up a perfectly capable B-52 at Fairchild AFB using weather from FSRealWx and request taxi to the active...and get shot down. :rolleyes: The kicker is that I'm not dealing with a solid overcast or a wind hazard, I'm barely dealing with a couple of clouds and some snow flakes. There's AI traffic milling around above me. What gives? Are my settings wrong or is FS9 that much of an over-protective nanny? What does it take to shut down an airport in this sim and how do I fix it?

I'm running FS2002 and FS2004, but I also run them on Win10. Have you tried any different "compatibility modes"? Sometimes, Win10 gets really picky when installed software has to share information, like a SID/STAR database that has to load into the sim. I have a couple of "outside" program and data sets for both sims and sometimes you have to set the comp mode to a different version of Windows than you have set for FS. Sometimes, you can look into how old the program is and guess at the right comp mode. Sometimes, you just have to keep trying until you find the right comp mode. You may also need to turn on ADMIN for one or both programs, but this is usually my last option. If you're sure FS and your other programs are trying to "talk" to each other but it isn't happening, I would bet the farm its a compatibility mode issue. I hope this helped and good luck. :pilot:

I've been poking at and tweaking FS2002 since about 2006 and I wound up getting really frustrated with trying to program my own AI. The AI in FS2002 are a lot more limited than in FS2004. For the most part, they are limited to taking off at airport A and landing at airport B. :p What I wound up doing was buying a program called Ultimate Traffic for FS2002 and installing it then calling it "good". FS2002 doesn't really support ship traffic, as far as I know. It might be possible but then again it might not. :confused: Sorry I can't give you a better reply but like I said, AI for me was a really frustrating experience that didn't work out. :(

I'm trying to find a couple of call signs for Edit Voice Pack: "HEAT"- FB-111 out of Plattsburg AFB. "TSAR" or "CZAR"- B-52 out of Fairchild AFB (currently using the call sign "STAR" which is pretty close). Anyone seen anything close? :confused: