BobSeaman

Small world, I used to do Nav/Electronics on submarines. That was one of the things that got me into FS in the first place, could I still navigate over long distances? :pilot: There were folks who claimed they could do celestial nav in FS (dig around in the old, old FSFW95 section and you might find something) but outside of finding Sirius when you want to head north, there were some problems I still haven't figured out: Sextant- Never mind making an averaging sextant for FS, how would you get tighter than 1 degree accuracy? :confused: Star charts- There are some nice edits of the star field available for FS2002 and FS9, but how accurate are they, really? WHEN were they created? That date and time is important. The bubble- Believe it or not, this is the killer for Celestial in FS. What does "level" mean to FS and how does it measure being "level" accurately? So, it comes down to how small one pixel is. On scenery terrain it isn't an issue, when it shows something that could be 100 light years away, it becomes important. BTW, I highly recommend a book titled "Flying from the Black Hole (the B-52 Navigator Bombardiers of Vietnam)" by Robert O. Harder. Most of the book deals with the ARCLIGHT and LINEBACKER missions but the first quarter of the book is a really good history about how aircraft navigate over long distance. PS- I knew there was a reason I liked your posts. :D

Update- :cool: Since I kept getting the message that BGLComp had failed, I did some sleuthing and found out it needed MSXML4. Did some more checking and found the download at the MS web site since it wasn't installed on my rig after all. Ran RWY12 again and got mah BGL! :D I wound up using WinXP sp2 as the comp mode for both the object placer and BGLComp, but I'm still curious what you other Win10 users are using?

I'm hoping someone else has had experience getting RWY12 to place objects in FS9 on a Win10 system. :confused: I installed RWY12 earlier and its kind of fighting me a bit. I have FS9 installed directly to my C: drive in a folder named FS9 (not the typical C:/Program Files (X86) path). I have RWY12 installed in its own folders and the object library activated. RWY12 runs fine and synchs up to FSIUPC with no issues. I tried to create a simple BGL as per the docs. All of the programs seem to be talking to each other but I get a message saying that BGLCOMP failed to produce the BGL. So, some basic questions: - I just started running FS9 a couple of weeks ago and am still getting used to it, does RWY12 use the reg entry for FS to locate the actual folders? Its a little late to move FS into the more traditional "MS Games" folder and I haven't found anything like a .cfg file in RWY12. - Compatibility Mode. Without C.M., I couldn't even get the Object Placer to communicate with FSIUPC. I'm currently using Win8 C.M. with Admin set for both RWY12 exe's. This is the same mode I had to use to get AFCAD2 talking to FS. If you have RWY12 running on Win10, which mode are you using? - RWY12 uses MSXML4 and Dotnetfx NET frameworks. Everything I'm seeing tells me I should already have them installed (or at least the processes are covered in Win10). Can I even install them in Win10? - Once/if I get RWY12 to produce a BGL, can I control where it gets produced? Like, maybe have the BGL show up on my desktop so I can install it manually?

LOL, yep. My over-all feeling about ground textures is .....DON'T HIT THEM! Make sure they stay UNDER the plane. :eek: I started out with FSforWin95 and FS98. By the time I got FS2002, it was too late to get into the training and certificates. :pilot: I still wish I had tried it, but they're hard to get into if you aren't a newbie. So, enjoy it while you can. :cool: One neat trick I really like about FS2002, set your install up to run on "system time and date" (just tick the box) then set up a flight in the plane you like parked in your spot at your home airport and save it as something you'll remember (I use "current"). Save that flight with the "make default" box ticked. Its also nice to completely shut down the plane prior to saving. Now, when you start FS, you'll start out in your plane at the current time and date. This is also handy if you're doing some texture or dynamics tweaks and you need to make a bunch of tests. One of the nicer things about this kind of set up is always saving your flight once you finish your session as "current". You'll need to check your fuel the next time you load up the sim, which is just an extra layer of "immersive". My last Big Tip is getting used to . This toggles the display from full screen to windowed mode. Full screen (to me) looks better. The problem is that in Full Screen you'll lose the preview window when you're trying to load the right plane. Just toggle over to Windowed mode and it returns. That, and getting used to hitting the key to bring up the menus and hitting the key to automatically set your barometer/altimeter are the two key combos that will become as common as scratching your nose.

FS2002 is one of those "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" sims. :cool: Depending on your hardware (a fast CPU cures a lot of ills), you can run routinely at 60 Hz. With an older i3 CPU (but a stock clock running close to 4 GHz), I can run FS2002 for over 12 hours of "real time" with no worries in Win10 (64 bit). Honestly, the hardware finally caught up to FS2002. :D You need to be careful when adding scenery (most FS2004 scenery in FS2002 is NOT a good idea) but "land class" and "mesh" files for FS2004 run fine and make a nice difference for VFR flights. There are many FS2004 aircraft you can run in FS2002 but you'll need to learn how to make some "conversions" using an .air file editor and maybe a texture converter. Its not that hard to figure out. :pilot: I finally broke down several weeks ago and installed FS2004 for the first time. "Building" the "new" sim is a lot easier than I thought at first, I had years with FS2002 to figure out what I wanted to add. I'm not saying FS2002 is going anywhere on my desktop, I plan to fly it as much as I have in the past. One thing I can say about FS2002, with modern hardware you can throw the sink at it and it does fine. I have something like 1,500 aircraft installed (including AI models) over the years and I like to dust off an old plane from time to time. Its no big issue. The biggest problem for FS2002 was the loss of "real weather" but search the FS2002 downloads and you'll find a collection of weather files I saved for various times of the year (these are world-wide weather files, so you can fly from anywhere in the month of June or January). So, enjoy the sim. :cool: There are still some of us FS2002 Geezers around so if you run into problems, we can help you out. One thing I have noticed about FS2002 since I installed FS2004, while the ground textures aren't as sharp there are many times when FS2002 just looks better. Try a flight at dawn or dusk and you'll see what I mean.

This one is tricky. :confused: My best guess would be to search Wiki using the names of the most likely suspects (region, country, etc.) and confirm if the ICAO code changed or not. Otherwise, it would be tough to get on an air traffic controllers mail list. Maybe try contacting someone at VATSIM? :shrug:

Nope, it was just me tweaking the sensitivity and null zone for my throttle so it looked better in the VC view. I could play around with it again, then recalibrate the throttle, but that sounds like a lot of effort for minimal gain. ;) In other words, "If it already works-don't try to fix it". :pilot:

B-52 flight crews were always somewhat unique. In most branches of the military, if you aren't moving up you should be thinking about moving on (if you miss a promotion, that's pretty much your glass ceiling). In SAC (especially), a B-52 flight crew could stay together for many years at the same ranks and it was no big deal. You were in demand and SAC didn't mind if you stalled out as a Captain or even a Lieutenant (there were guys who were very happy to be Lieutenants and considered themselves top-level co-pilots and Navs, never wanting to take over the other seat) . All that mattered was having enough crews to cover the SIOP.

You are seeing what are called "control characters" which are closer to binary and machine language. Don't use notepad to edit an air file, search the "must have" files for FS9 and get a copy of AIRED ("air-ed"). You can edit air files to your heart's content, just be careful with the changes you make. Aired will show you a type of "branch" display and what kind of actions those numbers control. The usual important stuff you'll want to edit are found near the top of the data and in "section 1101", you'll see what I mean once you install Aired. Once you have it installed (you can install it pretty much anywhere), right click on a .air file and chose the "Open with" function, then select Aired and you're done. After that, you can just double click on your .air files and they'll automatically open in Aired.

Casey; You might also want to jump down the rabbit hole and try flying the beast, yourself. :cool: Go over to Vertavia.com and check out their Freeware section. You'll find a really nice B-52 G and H package to download. I can hook you up with my sound sets for both aircraft if you need them. I'm also figuring that you're running FS9, do yourself a favor and install the optional "complex" flight dynamics. In the long run it will make things easier. Then start out at Castle AFB (KMER) for flight training. As Tom noted, pick a period when you want to fly. B-52 operations changed over the years and there are some distinct "eras" to take into account: 1950's to mid 1960's- High altitude "SIOP" missions and silver planes. Mid 1960's to mid 1970's- Low level SIOP and high altitude conventional bombing. Camouflage ("SIOP1") becomes popular. Mid 1970's to mid 1980's- The "SIOP1" paint is starting to fade but the mission remains. B-52's transition from dropping bombs to flying as cruise missile launch platforms. "SIOP2"/Euro/lizard paint shows up (my favorite era). Mid 80's to early 1990's- SAC starts to feel the pinch as the SIOP mission draws down. Conventional bombing returns as the primary mission. "SIOP2" paint changes to Gunship Gray. Mid 90's to present- SAC disbands, ACC/GSC take over. SAC bases start to close leaving only Barksdale and Minot. Each "era" had its own wrinkles in terms of how the planes were flown but for the most part the flight time for the crews breaks down something like this- one week "off" in the Alert Shack then three weeks flying one training mission/sortie per week. Each training mission ran 8-12 hours in total and involved all of the different specialties the crew needed to stay current (Nav legs and timing, refueling, high level and low level bombing, and two hours of "pattern work" at or near the home base). Flying the B-52 in FS takes commitment. Its actually easier to learn if you haven't spent time in the other "big iron" planes. The B-52 doesn't fly like ANYTHING else and a lot of it is "seat of the pants" with your hands on the yoke. Timing is very hard at first, you HAVE to be on time (plus or minus two minutes) for normal ops and there are other phases where you need to hit your waypoints within 10-15 seconds. I can teach you the basics if you want me to BUT you have to develop your OWN experience to really get it right. BTW, it isn't impossible. I've logged over 300 hours of flight time with the B-52 in FS. :pilot: Once you figure it out, its a rush. You really feel like you accomplished something. Anyway, enough of the sales pitch. :cool: One last thing are some common mis-conceptions about the B-52: -"Nose art" was pretty rare during the SAC era. SAC was all about standardization and pretty ladies on the nose wasn't "standard". -Flight crews didn't "own" an airplane. There were usually three crews in each squadron for each plane. If anyone, the Crew Chief owned the plane and the crews got to borrow it from them for training flights. Which ever plane was ready was the one they flew. - The B-52 is HEAVILY weight-dependent. Your fuel weight (never the amount of gallons) is what determines how the plane gets flown and its a surprising amount of fuel that the plane can carry. Fairly early on, you'll have 488 thousand pounds and 325 thousand pounds etched into your memory (gross max take off weight and gross max landing weight). - The B-52 CANNOT vent extra fuel unless the tanks get shot up. Let's say you take off at a gross weight of 400 thousand pounds and an engine explodes. You'll either have to eject or call a Mayday and putter around until you burn off 100 thousand pounds of fuel. :eek: That's a six hour Mayday, btw. Its happened, it happened to a B-52 staged out of Diego Garcia during Desert Storm and they were carrying full racks of bombs. -Considering the size of the wings and tail planes, the B-52 has tiny control surfaces. This becomes important (really, really important) when you're taking off or landing in cross winds. You can hold the rudder at what ever position you want and it won't make ANY difference until you get above 90 knots. Likewise, "elephant walking" a B-52 during taxi ops is a bit of an art. You really should limit your first two to three training flights to just getting used to how the plane taxis in calm winds and heavier cross winds (that vert tail really likes to weather vane the plane below 90 knots). That also brings up the subject of Minot AFB. Trust me, you'll really get good at taxi ops if you chose Minot as your home field. ;) -Its perfectly normal to be flying straight and level at a holding altitude with the nose pointing 5 degrees DOWN. :confused: Likewise, those external fuel tanks on the G and H models work kinda backwards from every other plane that uses external tanks. That isn't fuel, its a counter weight to help reduce the wing flex (18 feet of wing flex up AND down at the tips) and you won't pull fuel from those tanks until you're nearly empty. The B-52 is also limited to +2 and -1 G but once you get enough experience, 0 G is great way to quickly pick up speed. :cool: - Your attitude is critical during take off and landing. The B-52 is best thought of as a "flat flier" and you don't want to exceed 2 degrees up after take off while your flaps are still deployed and you REALLY want to be sure the rear main wheels touch down just before the fronts (like, within seconds) when landing. On the real plane, having the front mains touch first results in what's known as a "pogo" that shoots the nose back up until the plane stalls and drops, which puts the fronts mains on the ground first, again, which results in another pogo and eventually you'll either be explaining to the base commander why you wanted to be a pilot (and how much you'll miss it) or else you'll make a very large and expensive crater. In other words, never pogo the plane. ;) One last thing about landing, "greasing" the plane onto the ground where the wheels just barely kiss the runway is usually not the best way. Wet or cold runways and crosswinds usually mean its better to "slam" the gear down as quickly as possible (again, rear mains always first). Anyway, the flight model of the Virtavia/Alphasim B-52 is quite accurate once you learn to fly it and it is (IMO) one of the toughest planes to master in FS, plus its free. :cool:

Just a quick post on fixing little things when they go wrong. :pilot: I'm not new to FS but I am new to FS9 and am mostly finished installing planes and scenery on this build. I have a bunch of carriers and NAS FOLS practice zones set up and all of a sudden things went slightly crazy with Arrcab2.6. I could "trap" with no problem. Now don't be hatin', I'm just that good :pilot: (seriously, I've been doing this longer than I should admit). The small problem was that, suddenly, I couldn't get the cat to launch me. Set up in a "cat" zone with no issues and set the parking brake, order a cat shot with and get the "armed" message, run up full power and release the brake and.... nothing. :eek: No kick, just normal acceleration as the end of the flight deck rolled by-slowly. And, the kicker was that it worked just fine the day before. :confused: So, something must have changed. Right? OK, I start to think about what I changed recently. I added some aircraft. I added some scenery and ai. I also did some tweaking to the sensitivity and null zone for my stick. What else? Oh yeah, I goofed around with some compatibility settings just to check them out! THAT had to be it! Jump to the chase, no that was not it. :p OK, I added some new trap zones to Arrcab. Since I had no issues trapping, maybe it was the higher number of trap zones that did me in? Load up a back-up and no joy. Same problem. OK, time to back track some more. I tried un-doing some of the other changes I had made and still no luck. OK, what about tweaking the stick controls? It shouldn't have mattered, I was getting full throttle, wasn't I? Turns out I wasn't, it just felt like it. 94% N1 didn't feel much different but it just wasn't enough to trigger the catapult. So, I guess there's a moral to the story, somewhere. Don't always trust in being lucky, sometimes its better to test everything after you change anything. :pilot:

One of the less obvious things about running an app/program in Win10 ADMIN mode is that there are two ways to set it up. Right-click on the shortcut and set ADMIN mode runs the prog ONCE as ADMIN. Dig down and find the actual .EXE file in its folder, then right-click and select PROPERTIES and THEN set ADMIN, and it always launches that way. I went thru that trying to get all the functions working for AFCAD2 last week. :rolleyes: I guess the idea is to try ADMIN on the shortcut first to see if it works, then set the actual .EXE to ADMIN once you're sure.

This probably won't fix the problem, but its a really painless thing to try. Try unplugging and re-seating (re-plugging) the USB connections for your controllers. Sometimes the contacts can get nasty after being plugged in for a long time. Pulling then re-seating the connectors will clean the contacts.

Funny you brought that up, I installed FS9 for the first time last week and started getting tired of the "30 FPS life", so I started goofing around and noticed the same thing about turning AA on with a Win10 system. No hit on frame rate for me with the sim locked at 60 FPS and my screen shots look great. :cool: One thing I did do was turn off the fancy clouds and now my frames only drop around detailed add-on scenery. :D Edit- I normally run in full screen mode. I'll do some tests today and see what happens. OK, I need to note that I rarely run in windowed mode. I loaded a flight* and things looked great in full screen, hit and it didn't look much different in windowed mode BUT I could tell it didn't look as good. Which begs the question: Why are you running in windowed mode in the first place? :confused: Just get used to using the keys if you need to start or stop a program/app and do your flying in full screen mode. Likewise, just get used to hitting the key if you want to bring up the drop down menu. I don't even think about the hitting the keys, its just automatic. *-still getting used to how FS9 starts up. This is less complicated in FS2002. :p

I'm guessing your throttle controls a burner, maybe? :confused: Check your .air file and see what its based on. That should give you a clue on what to try. :pilot:

Yeah, I've got time to mess with it. :pilot: The truth is that Nellis isn't that important if you're into flying bombers (although the traffic files could be..). :eek: One thing I'm wondering, in FS2002 I can set up a flight as the default loaded flight and when I start the sim I'm in the view I set with the calendar and clock current with my system's time. I kinda get why you need the first menu in FS9 but why did they bother with a "use system time" option and... how can I get it to work? :confused:

Well, Nellis AFB went *boom*. :eek: I wanted to try out the MAIW FS9 package for Nellis and it didn't go well. :rolleyes: Some of the scenery loaded but a lot didn't (like the actual runways) so after puttering with it I gave up. And un-installed the scenery. Then uninstalled it again ad now there's a pleasant grass field where the AFB used to sit. :rolleyes: I did an install of the Nellis package to an empty folder on my desktop just to find all of the BGLs including the flattens. While I liked the idea of having the bombing ranges at least marked on the map, they aren't worth this hassle. Worst case I can try installing the SDB FS9 Nellis package I'm using in FS2002, but I want to get the stock airport back, first.

Well, I think its time to kick back for a couple of days and crack open a beer. :D I'm at the point where its easier to manually edit the scenery.cfg file :pilot: and I got my old copy of FSRealWXPro working along with Arrcab2.6 which means... Carriers! :cool: Not too bad considering I loaded FS9 for the first time on Monday. One odd thing- I had FS9 set up in Admin mode and XP compatibility and it was freaking out a bit. I turned compatibility mode off and it runs fine, now. I guess it pays to let Win10 update itself. :D

I think I found the easy way to do mesh without 500 different levels. MAIW uses a separate Scenery folder inside the Addon Scenery folder for their local mesh files. I tried some nice (and fairly huge) mesh for both Koreas and just plunked the BGL in there. No problems. Then added 9 BGLs for New England and it still isn't squawking. :cool: Like I wanted, i don't need to enable each BGL. Oh, also got my old favorite GPS (ACS-GPS) to work for both FS9 and FS2002. Its handy when you want to feed the auto pilot without using a flight plan. Also having some mixed results with a REALLY old school (FS for Win 95) GPS that shows distance and bearing to your selected co-ords accurate to 1/10th of a mile. The gauge works fine but FS9 tries to make it invisible or else shut it down, then it pops back into existence on the 2D panel . :confused:

:D Well, ain't that a messed up way to run a railroad. lol Thanks again, I had a pretty good way to install scenery and mesh in FS2002. Little did I know I had to click the white spot. :rolleyes: Speaking of mesh, in the good old days you could just jam it in the main scenery folder. Where do you install it, and do I need to activate it like regular scenery?

Things are going fine except for one hassle: Turning on scenery. :p I've had mixed results with some MAIW scenery and traffic packages, some install OK. Some just don't. What the heck are the specifics for turning on scenery that gets installed in the Add-on Scenery folder? I get to the scenery screen fine, and I can select the right folder but it feels like I'm missing something. Do I select just the main folder or do I need to go one more step and select that folder's scenery folder? :confused:

So, I've got everything installed and running. Thanks for the install tips, eveything is running smooth although its running at 25 FPS but I guess I'll live with that. :D Got the A2A WOP CD installed after doing fiddling. :rolleyes: Otherwise, I'll give it some time to get past the normal "day one hiccups". I want to try loading some of the FS2002 global weather files I uploaded to see if they work in FS9.

Read my first post, again. ;) I'll install 9.1 and the "no CD" patch after I get the A2A package installed. From what I've read and experienced so far, A2A made their installer very picky in terms of what FS9 is called and where it resides. :rolleyes: I'm still curious about why people say to install directly to the main drive instead of using the Program files (X86) folder? What's the reason for avoiding the (X86) location? I have games installed there and also in the main directory and it doesn't seem to make any difference. :confused:

I'm running a fast i3 CPU (3.9-something GHz clock, stock) with a very cheap (no cooling fan needed) GPU and I have a ton of free space on my HD. With FS2002, this means I can run with all of the sliders maxed out at 1920X1080 resolution and I have the frame rate locked at 60 Hz. FS2002 tends to run very smoothly for longer than 12 hours at a time, if its needed. Honestly, I'll give up before the computer does. :D OS is 64 bit Win 10 and I have 16 gigs of DDR3 RAM. I'm not worried about specs, I just want to set up FS9 so its "right". My FS2002 install looks a bit like a salvage yard after 5+ years on this machine (lots of mesh/land class, maxed AI traffic, 1,500 planes in the Aircraft folder at last count, lots of scenery/AFCAD additions, etc). To be honest, I'm not really expecting to do the same thing with FS9. At least not for a while. :rolleyes: Maybe add a bunch of mesh/land class and some scenery I always wanted to check out but mostly fly some of the "unobtainium" planes I couldn't convert back to FS2002 (looking forward flying some old Alphasim FS9 planes, the KBT P-3 Orion, and the LIC Christen Eagle). :pilot:

What kind of resolution are you wanting to use? 4K, 8K? :confused: It theory, it should scale with no problems (since its considered "windows native") but Fs2002 was never really designed for modern hardware. Also, keep in mind that no matter how old the program- really high resolutions will effect your FPS but you really want to run the same resolution as your default desktop. BTW, will put you in full screen mode with no borders. You'll lose the aircraft preview screen in full-screen mode but its a nice trade-off.