scott_295

How is that not a mistake and how is that correct? If I fly from point A to point B and the flight takes 4 hours and I cross 4 time zones and I leave at 0800z, then I should arrive at my destination at 1200z, correct? But that's not what happens, sometimes (why it happens sometimes and not others, I haven't figured out). Even FS Real Time states in its readme file, "...when crossing Time Zones, FS2002 changed its UTC time instead of its Local Time, which can cause problems. The same thing happened when crossing the International Date Line but even worse -- by a whole day! For example, if you were flying East at dusk, when crossing a Time Zone, all of a sudden you would find yourself flying in broad daylight again." So time zones being correctly configured is completely irrelevant to what I'm talking about. The version of FS Real Time I was using prevented that and would maintain the correct zulu time (actually, all versions of FSRT would do that). Unfortunately, as I said, it would also change the date, which is why I quit using it. A newer version of FSRT worked the same way but also let you offset the date, which is what the first version of FSRT should have done; an oversight on Josh Robertson's part, it seems to me. Unfortunately, he changed FSRT from donationware to newer versions that either added a banner that scrolled across your screen or shut down after a set amount of time. Yeah, I get that all this stuff is old but I have an old PC. I also get that people lose interest in stuff like this. Unfortunately, there's a link in the "About" file of FSRT to donate. In the earliest versions, it provided an address to mail your donation. In the newer versions, it was automated to connect to PayPal or something similar (I forget which). So I clicked it and donated the suggested amount: $10. What I didn't know at the time was that support had discontinued. So I paid for nothing.

All I want is something that fixes the enormously stupid mistake by M$ of having FS change zulu time instead of local time when crossing time zones. Aside from that oversight, the biggest mystery is why they never fixed it.

He was the developer of FS Real Time. I was using an older version and saw there was a link to donate so you could get the registered version. I donated and never got the key for the software even though the payment went through. I guess he doesn't support it anymore. I tried contacting him to no avail. That was last year. I quit using it for a while because it doesn't just update the time. It also updates the date, which really annoys me. So now I'm looking to contact him so I can have a newer version that doesn't do that. And I'm hoping someone here knows him or knows what his current email is. Thanks.

It really isn't a big deal. And I agree with your assessment re: photoscenery. It's why I removed that SanFran bgl, thinking that would solve the problem. But, yeah, I wondered if there's a duplicate airport, too. If so, why? If not, then it's a scenery object bgl you mentioned. I thought it would be that SanFran bgl. I don't know. It's a mystery. Like most things Micro$oft. I understand why M$ compiled airports the way they did but I don't like it. I would love to remove all those damn private fields in the US because when I get close to my destination airport, I have to wade through multiple pages in the ATC window when hunting for my airport. The airport should show up at around 31 nm but when there are dozens of private airfields cluttering things up, I don't get the option to tune to the airport's tower until I'm around 22-25 nm out; sometimes less. I find it pretty irritating. I don't know if there's a faster/easier way to do it but one thing I tried once, years ago, was to save all the public airports in ADE and then remove the original bgl. It worked. But, boy, was it time consuming. And that was just for one bgl. There are 1,049 bgls just in the NAME folder alone! Granted, not all of them are for airports and there isn't an issue in Canada, so I could skip those, but it felt overwhelming so I abandoned that idea. Actually, the fault is with how M$ has you connect with an airport in the first place. If I'm already tuned to the airport's tower frequency, why shouldn't I be able to just contact them when in range? Why go through the process of having to pick the airport in the ATC? If I could, then what I just said about all those private airfields is moot. They really dropped the ball on this aspect. Typical. I've said many times over the years that if it wasn't for simulators and games, I'd have gotten a Mac instead of a PC. The only problem is, I dislike Macs as much as, maybe more than PCs. Quite the dilemma, isn't it? LOL I still miss the DOS days. ------------------------- I've got an unrelated question regarding parking spots. I read somewhere that when an AI plane lands at an airport, they park at the lowest numbered available parking spot and then move up from there. It appears, however, that what dictates where FS parks them is the index of the parking spot, not the parking spot number. Did that make sense? I discovered this when I tried renumbering the parking spots at one of my modded airports but the planes kept parking in the same spaces. When I looked at the indexes, that's when I figured it out. Am I correct?

I suspect you're right but for only one: KSFO. That's what I did and that's what I expected, too. No luck.

Okay, so I was wrong about exclusions. For some reason I was confused about how they work. Anyway, that fixed the problem with KADW. KSFO is another beast altogether. Here is what I've done/tried and the results: • added 10 parking spots – no effect • changed the apron where those parking spots are located, from concrete to tarmac (this worked at KADW) – no effect • put an exclusion where the refueling station is and moved the refueling station – original refueling station loads in its original position in addition to loading in the spot where I moved it • removed the original airport bgl from the Namw folder and stuck it on my desktop – original airport still loads • removed the ADE airport from Addon Scenery and stuck it on my desktop, as well – original airport still loads (the 2nd refueling station disappeared, as it should) • discovered there's a bgl called "SanFran" so I put that on my desktop and put the airport bgl back into its original folder – no luck • left the SanFran bgl on the desktop and put the airport bgl there, too – airport still loads I double checked the scenery library and as I expected, the "Addon Scenery" folder is #1. "Western North America" (Namw) is #29. I put the bgls back where they belonged and deleted my ADE file because I give up. For the most part, this was all academic, so I'm not going to beat my head against the wall trying to figure it out since it's not that important, anyway. Screw it. Thanks for the pointers, guys.

I thought of exclusions but they won't work. One of the edits I made was to turn a couple of buildings 90°. When it loads in FS, there are two buildings in the same spot, the original and the one I turned. The other problem is that I added some parking spots and they don't show in FS. Another option I considered was removing the bgl the original airport is in. But that would mean going through it to see if there are any other major airports I wouldn't want removed (I couldn't care less about private airfields). I don't understand why I can edit one airport and see the results of my changes but with others, the two airports are combined. Oh well. I'll look into this later because I have sports to watch for the rest of the day.

In general, I don't mess with larger airports, mainly because I don't fly to them much. But I have two airports where I made some minor changes in Airport Design Editor and it's like the original airport and the one saved by ADE in the addon scenery folder are combined in FS. The two airports in question are Andrews (KADW) and San Francisco (KSFO). What do I need to do to fix this?

Thank you very much, RJ. That's the info I was looking for. Much appreciated.

The kind of decal I'm talking about is the lettering you see of a plane's airline.There's one in the texture folders of the 747. And, yes, black is the transparency for the alpha channel. As for the type of bmp, I made a small edit to the plane itself and saved it as a DXT3 extended bitmap, which is what I always use for FS9. I've never had a problem using that format. In fact, I think I learned about it in this forum. Anyway, I saved the decal in the same format and nada. Zilch. Fail. I'm about a millimeter away from giving up. You're probably my last hope. lol

Yes.

I've searched around this and other forums and found a thread here re: editing decals (e.g. Decal_DH_dash8_100.bmp). "Opa" Marshall created documentation on editing prop bmps to fix a transparency issue that apparently helped someone with their decal editing. I followed the instructions but had no luck. The decal shows up as a black rectangle on the plane. I also found somewhere what someone else had done and followed their method with no luck. I then tried taking an already existing decal and editing that, doing nothing but changing the text, following the instructions from DXT1 Bitmap Manipulator to a T. No luck. I cannot figure out why any decal I edit or create is unsuccessful. Has anyone had success and can point me in the right direction?

I tried AIFP and another flight planner but ultimately grew dissatisfied with them. Neither is perfect and often caused more headaches. I just use Notepad (or Wordpad if the FP is simple). I already have a good idea how long a flight will take using Great Circle Mapper. You just type in the ICAO codes (separated by a dash), change the units to nautical miles, the speed to knots, type in the ground speed, and press "enter". The distance and time are calculated for you. If I want a plane to take off at a specific time, I generally leave the arrival time blank. TTools will calculate the arrival time based on the cruise speed in the aircraft.cfg file. The only problem is that when TTools calculates arrival time, that time is to the airport's airspace. But if I want a plane to land at a specific time, I use the "@" tag and then subtract the time calculated by GCM to come up with the departure time, usually adding 5-10 minutes for clearance, taxiing, etc, depending on the size and traffic at the departure airport. TTools will then calculate the cruise speed needed to stay on schedule. FYI, when using a fixed arrival time, that actually specifies the arrival time at the gate, give or take a few minutes, not to the airspace.

I was facetiously referring to Col's previous post. But I didn't have any problems. The plane came in and landed, just as it's supposed to. Something I found really interesting and did not expect is that the VFR AI plane requested transition through Bravo airspace. I don't know why I didn't expect that, even though I probably should have, but I thought that was pretty cool. Also, as a test, I purposely set it's altitude to one that is lower than a mountain range that crosses its FP. The plane increased altitude, continued along until it was safe, and then descended back to its assigned altitude. Très cool, no? It most assuredly is. As you pointed out "it isn't the default" setting. As we know, having the Traffic Toolbox module isn't necessary to create a flight plan for AI planes. And I've created dozens of them and then compiled them using Traffic Tools, but always as IFR FPs since I couldn't make VFRs work. But TTool's help section tells you nothing about making sure that the "IFR and VFR" box is checked in Traffic Toolbox's settings. So if it isn't the default setting in TTbox and you only follow TTool's instructions for creating a FP, how can you know that you need to change that setting? Indeed, if you didn't even have TTbox, it would be impossible for you to ever see an AI plane with a VFR FP because FS itself doesn't have a setting for that. Now tell me that's not messed up. It's just another thing in a long list of screw ups with MicroSoft software. And this is with its best performing, most stable flight simulator. Thankfully, there are people like you who have the experience to point people in the right direction when something isn't happening the way we expect them to. Indeed, you're the one who commented on someone's post about not being able to taxi in the DC-3. I took a look at your zip file and made the appropriate change in the aircraft.cfg file and voilà , no more problems! And just so you know, I'm not a newbie when it comes to PCs. I've been using them for nearly 40 years. Back in the DOS days, I created startup menus and sub-menus, since each individual software required different hardware settings. It was a steep learning curve but I read the DOS manual and was able to create stable environments for all my simulators and games. But I still need help, occasionally, even after all these years of tinkering with FS9. So, if I run into a problem in the future, I'm just going to start putting your name in the post title. Thank you again, sir. Much appreciated.

That did it. Thanks! Now I just have to make sure the plane lands at its destination and doesn't "veer off on approach and carry-on flying". But how messed up is it that if I didn't have TTb, I'd never be able to create a VFR flight plan? Like many others here, I really like FS9 but when I run into problems or am tweaking airports, it's amazing to me how many things I have to fix or the sloppiness that becomes apparent when you look closely at things. And then, of course, are the major problems that MS never bothered to fix.