Hi-I believe most of you already encountered problems with heavy planes like the PMDG 744s on particular airports, on which the plane is bumping, and at certain speeds, simply crash (during take-off or landings)This is due to the different materials runways are made of in FS .bgl, like 'concrete', 'asphalt', 'bitumus' ('grass' :( ) or such.A simple edit of the AFCAD file, default or add-on, solves the problem easily. What I've done many times. I change the runway property from 'bitumus' to 'concrete' or 'asphalt' and I'm on my way.However here's the question: is there a way so that PMDG planes dont crash on those bitumus runways. An hour ago, after a pleasant flight to italy, for some reason I decided to land in Milano-Malpensa instead of Milano-Linate, and happily crashed because I wasnt aware Malpensa was set to 'bitumus'.Anoying. One 744F and its crew sadly lost. And it's not PMDG related.

In short, the answer is no. The best solution is the one you have already mentioned. When I plan my flights, I alwasy check the departure and arrival airports, as well as my planned alternate, with AFCAD, to besure the runways are safe.As I recently asked in another thread, I would very much like to know if Microsoft corrected this problem in FSX? Andrew

744 in Linate? a bit too big i'd say... :) Not a solution but i'll still mention it, for nice italian freeware sceneries check www.isdproject.comLuca

Thanks Andrew and Luca.Luca-Havent you tried to land the Jumbo at Meigs Field(IL) yet? I tell you, it's quite fun to do. Linate's runway is 8000 feets, enough for a 747 not too heavily loaded. I should have sticked to Linate anyway, I'd still be alive at this moment :-)

ever since the PMDG 1900C crashed when trying to takeoff from a gravel runway, and when the AI airplanes sometimes overtake me and crash into me on approach, I have turned off crash detection completely

Have you tried using AI Smooth? It is in the Avsim library. CheersSteve