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Mithras

Organizing Your Aircraft

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I was wondering how you organized your hanger of flyable planes. Do you sit down and think of a plane you want to fly, then pick a location you want to fly it in? Do you, like me, pair up aircraft with sceneries, so that they comes as a package? I used to do the first, but wasn't getting much out of it, I figured this way I get to know a plane and a scenery really well.

 

I'm even considering trimming my hanger down a little so that I have only one twin prop, one A2A GA plane, etc,

 

I'm not sure. What fo you do? Do you hold on to many planes?

 

I do like to save my GA flights, which gives Carenado planes a bit more life, you have to do the preflight in case you left the throttles forward or brake off or flaps down! And fuel has to be checked ... Or else! Gives the Carenados, Alabeos and Milviz aircraft a touch of 'persistence'! Of course it means you pair up a plane with a scenery too.

 

I just wondered if others had been through all this culling of aircraft?

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I've changed strategies many times over the years.

 

I do favor state-saving aircraft.  What I have often done is to pick an aircraft for a specific long journey - and then fly it leg by leg, saving the flight and the end of each leg, and loading that flight again to continue.  This works absolutely the best with certain aircraft that offer not only persistence in how switches and stuff are set, but also maintenance features, so that you have to treat the aircraft properly.  So my favorite candidates for this (in FSX) are Marcel Felde's DA20, and the various A2A offerings.

 

I've also matched regions with aircraft.  A year ago or so, I visited every airstrip in Hawaii with the DA20.  Real weather, real day of the year, adjusting the time of day to allow for daylight (since I usually sim at night).  Every leg had the flight saved, and every new leg started from that spot.  I actually enjoyed it so much that I once I reached the end of my airports to visit, I turned around and visited them all again.

 

I did this approach as well with FTX Scotland - I used one of the CeraSim helicopters to fly exclusively in that region, leg to leg.  However, again I was using real world weather, and I ended up putting that mission on hold since winter turned the northern part of Scotland far too windy to fly.

 

Lately I've been doing much the same thing, but using FSEconomy as well.  Besides giving some use and purpose to some of the aircraft I didn't visit as often as I should, it also gives me the tools to track and plan flights for doing some of the above; I currently own a DA20 over in the UK that I plan on touring around in, picking up small jobs with.


Jim Stewart

Milviz Person.

 

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I've heard of someone who picks a base airport and flies out to all the airfields in a certain radius, then moves on to another base airport and then does the same. I guess you get to know your base airport and the surrounding area quite well, which is true to a pilot's life.

 

I find I tend to fly out of a base to check out some local strips, and then do a long 'circuit' out and back again to the base airport, vising interesting locations along the way. These circuits may take two or three flights to do and require stop-overs. I'm usually flying bush planes or twins for this.

 

I am quite jealous of simmers who have a base and get to know it intimately, but I'm always afraid I'll get bored. Closest I've come yet to an established base is St Marten, and McCall in Idaho (perfect for visiting all those creek airfields on the Salmon and Snake Rivers.

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Nope no base airport and no pre-saved states or anything, just random free flying all over the globe.

Sometimes I pick two airports to fly between and then choose an airplane to use. Then other times I choose the aircraft first and then the airports.

Although mostly when selecting airports I usually tend to pick airports that I have "improved" with ADE.

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I routinely go thru my virtual hangar and uninstall aircraft that have been unused for a few months. My current aircraft count (not including defaults) is about 10-12 aircraft. Almost all of my flying is MIL emulation so I will fly from a home base to a "det" (detachment) at another facility, say from NAS Lemoore to NAS Whidbey Island, then fly in and out of Whidbey for a few weeks. After that, return home for a while.

 

Not too long ago, I did a tour of French Navy airfields that took about 3 weeks before coming home to USA.

 

I have experimented with various ways to get aircraft in and out of the hangar but uninstalling/reinstalling seems to be as good as any for me.

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If I am really getting rid of an aircraft I uninstall it, but otherwise I remove it from the Aircraft List by going into its folder and renaming the Panel folder something like Panel XXX. Makes it easy to start flying the plane again.

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Easy way to slim the hangar down.... If it hasn't got A2A, PMDG or Majestic in the title, then bin it. :)

 

Then I choose flights based on real world airline routes... Ones I have been on in real life, ones from my favourite base airports, or occasionally routes that take in some "fun" weather, found by watching a bit of The Weather Channel

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Rob Bates
Simming since the age of 10 with MSFS 5.0

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Ask me about (my most flown): FSLabs A320-X series | MaddogX
In the hangar: Majestic Q400 Pro | PMDG 747 | A2A C182, Cherokee, Comanche & Spitfire

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Here is the simplest way to handle "hanger queens..."

 

Drag-n-drop the ones you don't want to fly into the "Airplane Hanger." No files are actually moved, you are simply changing the "address" of the aircraft's folders/files. :yahoo:

 

It sure beats the heck out of uninstalling and reinstalling! :Shocked:

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Fr. Bill    

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Easy way to slim the hangar down.... If it hasn't got A2A, PMDG or Majestic in the title, then bin it. :)

 

That's my method, just be selective, only buy things your really want, only install liveries you will actually use, then be aggressive with the use of Favourites.

 

Though I would add RealAir and possibly Flysimware to the above list...  :wub:

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In Prepar3d you can simply define favorite aircraft liveries by marking them with a star in the aircraft list. If you then click on "favourites", only those are shown. I've narrowed my list down to 6 aircraft.

 

Peter

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Easy way to slim the hangar down.... If it hasn't got A2A, PMDG or Majestic in the title, then bin it. :)

 

Then I choose flights based on real world airline routes... Ones I have been on in real life, ones from my favourite base airports, or occasionally routes that take in some "fun" weather, found by watching a bit of The Weather Channel

That's a bit extreme! ;) A part if me wants to chuck everything that isn't study level, in my case the RealAir Duke, and my A2A Cub, Cherokee, 172 and 182, as well as the Aerosoft Twin Otter. But that really restricts you to the wonderful global experience of flying.

 

I fly my A2A planes more than anything else . But I want an A2A twin, soon! I love the twins and have a few trusty versions that I flip between, trying to decide which one ti settle on.

 

But, my main inspiration for flights is the news, or flights featured on Aircrash Investigations, so I have a nice hanger of aircraft that allows me to fly those missions, airliner liveries for every continent, a nice bizjet, some key RAF aircraft, a Hercules in UN livery for aid flights, etc.

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Easy way to slim the hangar down.... If it hasn't got A2A, PMDG or Majestic in the title, then bin it. :)

 

 

You're missing out on quite a few gems with that!  RealAir Legacy or Duke, Sibwings An-2, Marcel Felde's DA20,  Aerosoft's Twin Otter... and that's not even getting into the military aircraft like the VRS Superbug, the M2M Mirage or pretty near anything with wings on it from Milviz.

 

But that said, it's darn hard to have every single quality aircraft installed and give them all ample flying time, especially if you hold interest in a variety or different types of aviation.


Jim Stewart

Milviz Person.

 

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I currently only have the ones I fly, anything else is in the archive. You can easily disable a loaded addon aircraft by renaming the Panel directory to something else. That way loading the hanger goes quickly


Matthew Kane

 

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That way loading the hanger goes quickly

 

Which is the primary reason why I use a variation of Fr. Bill's advice.  I copy an installed and tweaked aircraft to a different hard drive, and then I delete it from the aircraft folder in FSX; any time I want to fly a particular aircraft, I simply drag a copy of it back in.  Saves space on my SSD, and the aircraft loading screen is so much quicker.

 

Although right now I'm working from a fairly recent (months old instead of years old) install of FSX:SE, so I really don't have many aircraft installed, just a few loyal favorites.


Jim Stewart

Milviz Person.

 

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