Add on scenery question.

Hello All

I have many add on airports (freeware)

My question..when adding a third party airport ,should you somehow disable the stock Fs9 airport it's replacing or will having both cause problems.

Thanks Andrew

I've never disabled the stock, normally the addon over rides it.

Col.

Hi, Socks!

I have found that sometimes the readme file will suggest removing the default or more likely, any other addon of the same airport. If there is no mention of removal, I normally leave the default airport alone.

Thanks to you both.

The only reason I am asking is because iam noticing some strange things with certain add-on airports ,as an example I have a very good scenery for LSZH , but I notice that when adding weather via FSRealWX I will often be positioned at the wrong runway for the prevailing wind direction ,now with most stock airports this is not a problem as I simply re load the aircraft and eventually I will be positioned at the correct runway, this doesn't happen with some add-on airports ,and I usually have to position the aircraft myself even though I have requested the active runway (which is incorrect as per prevailing wind)

Also when deciding to position the aircraft myself I notice that (in the case of my LSZH airport ) the runways listed should be ILS equipped but are not .

There definitely feels that something ain't quite right .

Another third party freeware airport ULLI also shows no gates or parking spaces in FsNavigator .

These sceneries are very good by the way ,as are the others that I have ,but I do get these anomalies .

I appreciate that my description of what is occurring maybe a bit confusing,but I hope you can get some idea of what is going on.

Thanks Andrew

If you are running FSNav , and you add 3rd party airports you SHOULD run the FSNav database ,same as removing airports, this will put in the gates/parking etc into the navigator .

I am sure I have done that before, but I will give it another go.

Thanks for your suggestion.

Cheers Andy

Plus 1 what Swoop said, I removed an airport not long ago but it was still there in FSNav till I ran the database.

Col.

Hello All

Just a follow up thanking you all for trying to help with my LSZH and ULLI problems.

I have some limited success. Concerning LSZH (by Freez)I removed and then reinstalled it ,I ran the DB creator within FsNav and now the runways that have ILS capabilities are now showing in FsNavigator ,but not in the Goto airport facility within Fs9 itself.(the runways are present, but show as non ILS)

As for ULLI I did the same i.e.deactivated it ,reactivated it, ran the DB creator ,but no joy the scenery in FsNavigator still shows an airport devoid of gates ,parking etc however on landing there you can still request and be directed to gates or parking.As these issues are more an irritant than actually flight spoiling I will file under Fs9 mysteries that we all know and love. :)

Thanks all.

Andy

When you deactivated and then reactivated, so what would happen if you removed it instead then installed it again, just a thought, it might work it might not but worth a try.

Col.

Hello All

Just a follow up thanking you all for trying to help with my LSZH and ULLI problems.

I have some limited success. Concerning LSZH (by Freez)I removed and then reinstalled it ,I ran the DB creator within FsNav and now the runways that have ILS capabilities are now showing in FsNavigator ,but not in the Goto airport facility within Fs9 itself.(the runways are present, but show as non ILS)

As for ULLI I did the same i.e.deactivated it ,reactivated it, ran the DB creator ,but no joy the scenery in FsNavigator still shows an airport devoid of gates ,parking etc however on landing there you can still request and be directed to gates or parking.As these issues are more an irritant than actually flight spoiling I will file under Fs9 mysteries that we all know and love. :)

Just a few things about how Flight Simulator 2004 and FS Navigator work:

1. FS2004 works scenery on a layers system. You do not need to de-activate default airports because an airport scenery at a higher level with over-ride it by all the features included in that level..
   
2. FS2004 recognises 90% of the above just fine, but there are a few quirks that it doesn't - and additional ILSs are one of those. If an additional one has been added, it works and you can use it - but FS will never offer you an ILS approach unless you apply a crafty fix apparently available using Airport Design Editor - although I haven't actually tried it. It is on my "must do some time" list.
   
3. Both FS2004 and FS Navigator can get confused if the airport's co-ordinates vary on the add-on scenery. It is worth opening both the original and the add-on up in AFX or whatever you use and comparing them - nothing will break if you change the add-on to match the original. Otherwise it is likely you will see both airport versions superimposed in FS Navigator.
   
4. If by chance you have two add-ons, the layering principle should still work but beware that different co-ordinates will cause FS to crash when trying to load the AI traffic at the airport.
   
5. FS Navigator will display any runways deleted by an add-on.
   
6. If there is another file that provides airport facilities (some old sceneries have the taxiway signs in a separate file, for instance) FS Navigator might read that file and ignore the one that includes parking spots etc. This could be the problem at ULLI you are experiencing. You can check by hovering the mouse over the brown dot that represents the airport's co-ordinates and see what file it is reading. The best solution is to move the proper airport file to another level, higher that the add-on's one. I find this happens quite often, and keep a separate scenery layer specifically for airport layout files moved up a level or two.
   

Getting the right result takes a bit of perseverence, but you can get the desired result in the end.

John

Just a few things about how Flight Simulator 2004 and FS Navigator work:

 

1. FS2004 works scenery on a layers system. You do not need to de-activate default airports because an airport scenery at a higher level with over-ride it by all the features included in that level..
   
2. FS2004 recognises 90% of the above just fine, but there are a few quirks that it doesn't - and additional ILSs are one of those. If an additional one has been added, it works and you can use it - but FS will never offer you an ILS approach unless you apply a crafty fix apparently available using Airport Design Editor - although I haven't actually tried it. It is on my "must do some time" list.
   
3. Both FS2004 and FS Navigator can get confused if the airport's co-ordinates vary on the add-on scenery. It is worth opening both the original and the add-on up in AFX or whatever you use and comparing them - nothing will break if you change the add-on to match the original. Otherwise it is likely you will see both airport versions superimposed in FS Navigator.
   
4. If by chance you have two add-ons, the layering principle should still work but beware that different co-ordinates will cause FS to crash when trying to load the AI traffic at the airport.
   
5. FS Navigator will display any runways deleted by an add-on.
   
6. If there is another file that provides airport facilities (some old sceneries have the taxiway signs in a separate file, for instance) FS Navigator might read that file and ignore the one that includes parking spots etc. This could be the problem at ULLI you are experiencing. You can check by hovering the mouse over the brown dot that represents the airport's co-ordinates and see what file it is reading. The best solution is to move the proper airport file to another level, higher that the add-on's one. I find this happens quite often, and keep a separate scenery layer specifically for airport layout files moved up a level or two.
   

 

Getting the right result takes a bit of perseverence, but you can get the desired result in the end.

 

John

Thanks John

Very detailed reply.I will try to learn .

As it stands at the moment (as suggested earlier )I actually uninstalled the ULLI airport and also the surrounding area (ULLI and ULLIlc)I redownloaded from Avsimrus and tried to reinstall from scratch , unfortunately I couldn't quite understand the Russian to English translation and got rather muddled so in the end I simply cut my losses and settled for the default Fs9 version but then started getting scenery area missing etc on Fs9 startup ,to cut a long story short I sorted that ,and have now got Fs9 running again with no error messages,but minus what was a terrific scenery.

Just to let you know I have installed plenty of other freeware airports before ,most with no trouble at all.

I may give ULLI another go again sometime,but don't want jeopardize the smooth running of my sim which has been absolutely stable for hundreds of years now :)

Thanks again.

PS I should have left well alone in the first place ,although no parking or gate areas were showing in FsNav ,I could still use the scenery and get directed to gates or parking it's just that they were new Russian invisigates.

Thanks Andy

Ah, strange place, St Petersburg, full of invisibilites. I was passing through a completely empty customs hall boarding a ship there once and suddenly a seven foot high and four-foot wide Russion materialised from nowhere to ask what I had in a carrier bag. I think he thought I had stolen a plate from one of the palaces, but rather embarrasingly I had to unwrap, in front of everybody else, a Russian military hat!

I also nearly got arrested for photographing police cars there . . .

Back to business. Reference item 2 I did a quick test today and it seems that if you place a copy of the airport file in a lower scenery level than the default airport, you fool the simulator into thinking that one is the default one and you get offered an ILS approach! Need to try it a few more times to be sure . . .

John

Back to business. Reference item 2 I did a quick test today and it seems that if you place a copy of the airport file in a lower scenery level than the default airport, you fool the simulator into thinking that one is the default one and you get offered an ILS approach! Need to try it a few more times to be sure . . .

Further tests show that this works sometimes but not always, so not a true fix. Heigh ho . . .

John

I have just been reviewing this old post.

I notice that I did not even thank all of you who contributed to it.

That was very rude of me.

So thanks to all of you for your contributions.

Cheers Andy

Hi Guys,

There's a very good reason for never deleting or disabling any default airports after they have been superceeded by new addon versions and that is because, amongst others, all ATC vectoring data remains directly linked to the default airports. It's also for this reason that addon Afcad/ADE header and runway data must remain exactly the same as the default data. Any differences, e.g. in airport names, will also cause visible duplicate airports in FSNavigator.

ATC will vector you to any new runways for visual approaches only, even although they could be equipted with usable ILS/localizers, simply because these are not (yet) known in FS9. These then need to be declared in FS9 via, e.g. a utility program named "Approach Creator". The same holds true for any completely new airports for which no previously existing default airports existed.

Hope this helps

Hans