Hi guysSeeing as I have not flown an MS Corporation aircraft in FSX in well over 2 years (and the fact that a new OS and FSX install is on the way in less than 30 days anyway) I finally caved into temptation last night and decided to remove ALL the default MS aircraft folders from inside FSX's simobject/airplanes folder (and rotorcraft too for that matter) to see what would happen. Please note I am only talking about removing (and backing up obviously) the specific aircraft folders in the simobjects folder - the gauges and whatever else is all left alone.Why do this? Well, to get rid of close on 2GB worth of (for me useless) aircraft from the FSX insallation and to clear up FSX's aircraft selection screen as obviously all the default aircraft, with their folders removed, do not show up there. The 3rd aim is to decrease the general loading time it takes for the aircraft selection screen to load (with many addons this becomes an issue real quick).I will say that only the removal of the default C172 folder in anyway makes me nervous, to the point that I have it back in the simobject folder as I write this. Having said that I did try Carenado's C172 whilst the default C172 was removed and everything seemed to work as expected. I know that some older FS9 ports (like the ATR72-500) need you to load the default C172 first before you then load the addon yada yada. But if you do not use any of these older type ports then I am not sure how neccessary it is to actually have it (the default C172) in the simobjects folder at all?Some other observations:Clearly there are addons out there which in some way reference files inside one of the default ms aiplanes/rotorcraft folders, be it sound or whatever. As all gauge files are left intact if any addon references them then all is good to go. Personally, I would question the quality of an addon aircraft if it references any files inside one of the default ms aiplanes/rotorcraft folders. But that is just me.There is also the issue that, once removed, the folders will have broken registry links as picked up by ccleaner in my case. Not serious, you can either ignore them, or back them up and add them back in later if need be.One cool thing is that you can always very quickly just add any aircraft back into your simobjects folder if you so desire. Obviously ANY aircraft folders can be "temporarily removed" this way so if you do not want to un-install an addon aircraft you can use this method to just remove it until it is needed again.Have I missed anything perhaps?

No consequences. I have done that for a long time,removed what I don't fly - even removed only paintschemes. As long as you have backups, relax. If the game loads a flight where the aircraft is missing, it replaces it with another one.The only thing is if the default planes are used in your AI traffic. But I doubt there will be severe problems then...

The only thing is if the default planes are used in your AI traffic. But I doubt there will be severe problems then...

Does that apply to default AI traffic only or would AI traffic addons also be potentially affected?

Don't forget the missions use them also. Probably not a problem, unless you accidentally try to access them.

Is there a way to change the aircarft type in FSX using aired or a similar tool? I checked out the air file and I don't believe that parameter is there anymore. Considering that I do have aircraft that are not displayed in the menu, I would think that it is still an editable parameter with the right tool.

The only major issue is if one inadvertantly removes a plane that is used for your default flight, as I learned the hard way a long time ago. Instead of removing the entire airplane I just remove all but 1 of each plane's liveries now. That way, in multiplayer, you still see the correct plane if another is flying it, but take up a lot less space in FS previews.

Thanks to the post originator for raising this question - I've wanted to do this for a long time but always assumed (apparantly incorrectly) that doing so would mess up FSX bad.I'm so pleased to be able to clear out the 'chaff' that is the default aircraft (except the C172, C108 and Ultralite which are ok) !I think that as suggested, it;s worth keeping the folders in an alternative location, just in case they're ever needed.I use CCleaner (Crap Cleaner) too (a great little free program) - highly recommend it.

Leave the Sound-folders untouched. Some addons planes use the default sounds in some way or another.

The only major issue is if one inadvertantly removes a plane that is used for your default flight, as I learned the hard way a long time ago.

Yes, that is another good reason for perhaps leaving the C172 in place (both analog and G1000 versions). However, if you saved a flight using Carenado's C172 for example and ticked the default flight box beforehand and only then started to remove any other aircraft you should be ok. But again, I have come across the advice to load-the-default-C172-prior-to-complex-addon as a means of ensuring things work even when dealing with PMDG's J41. Perhaps there are some "things?" that the default C172 loads which are important somehow for complex addon operation? I do not know.But I will add that I have personally never had an issue in the years of using FSX which required me to first load the C172 to solve. On the other hand I would also not recommend using a complex airliner or other high-end addon (Accu-sim'd stuff for example) for the saved default flight either. One of Carenado's simple Cessna's seems like a perfect choice.tf51d: with regards to missions the ones which ship with FSX and Acceleration will indeed be a problem with no default aircraft though one can always fly these missions in your own choice of (hopefully closely matching type) aircraft. The only drawback is that you will not get the rewards if you do this, if that is even important to anyone who would be thinking of clearing out the default MS fleet in the first place.If you use multiplayer, which I do not, then the advice to be careful what you remove should be heeded. That said you can always easily drop back in whatever you took out to solve any issues...But, in thoery at least, it certainly looks like you could have just one single addon aircraft in FSX if you so wished using the folder removal method to "get rid" of the default fleet. Pretty cool!

Leave the Sound-folders untouched. Some addons planes use the default sounds in some way or another.

That defeats the whole point as it stops becoming a simple procedure. Could you perhaps be a bit more specific about which addons you mean?

Leave the Sound-folders untouched. Some addons planes use the default sounds in some way or another.

That defeats the whole point as it stops becoming a simple procedure. Could you perhaps be a bit more specific about which addons you mean?

As far as I remember, there

Suggestion:Instead of removing them, simply edit the "aircraft.cfg" to be "aircraft.sleep".That's really what FlightSimMgr does in a fleet format when the "disabled" option is implemented.That way, they do not clog up your Aircraft Selections and they are still there in the event that you need to reverse the process for troubleshooting purposes.You can also do that with other third party aircraft you seldom fly. In FS9 I have put just about all to sleep with the exception of the default 172 and what I currently want to fly.Happy flying:RTH

I believe the "towplane" feature uses the default Maule, though I think there are methods of substituting another aircraft.I would just editpanel= or panel=g1000topanel=nonein aircraft.cfgscott s..

I

Perhaps Captain Sim's 727 which is still waiting for its own soundpack? So if you leave the C172 in you will be fine... Just kidding! :( I like the .passive/.sleep solution for unused aircraft config files - nice and elegant! For now I want to run things for a while with only the default C172 in place (and all my other ac addons of course) to see if any issues pop up.Thanks for the tips so far!

I just completed a project designed to check what would happen if I removed aircraft (including the default ones) from the "airplanes" folder. My aircraft folder is more than 4gb. I thought perhaps if I could streamline this folder that the load time for FSX would improve. The only issue I found was the aircraft used for the default flight. On my system this is the Trike. I found I could remove all the aircraft except that one.Looking for additional answers, I tested various configurations and found the following:No matter how many aircraft I had in the "airplanes" folder or how few, load times for FSX did not improve - regardless of what I did. From what I've found, FSX only loads the thumbnails for the texture sets you have in the folder. FSX does not load anything else until you select a particular aircraft and its texture set. If you have the "show all" checkbox checked, FSX loads all the thumbnails you have. If you don't have the checkbox checked, FSX just displays the first texture in the aircraft.cfg file. If you don't have a thumbnail file in the texture folder then FSX loads a shadow picture with a question mark.So, on my system these was no advantage to removing aircraft from the "airplanes" folder.fb

My take on this is simple: You cannot know what calls are made on the default packages. The sim - and aftermarket - EXPECTS to find them there, so leave them there. You don't save disk space unless you delete them and you don't want to do that, they don't affect loading times, and not having them causes far more problems than having them.Simple fact: WHAT supplies the AI..? Unless you have replaced your entire AI fleet with an aftermarket package (and why would you do so if space-saving was a priority?) then the AI aircraft come from the default fleet. LEAVE THEM ALONE!If saving space is a priority by far the simplest solution is to remove repaints you are not currently using. Particularly with sophisticated addons these tend to be in texture files that are larger in size than the whole of the default fleet, combined! You can't fly more than one aircraft at a time in FS, and most of us don't flit from one repaint to another, and if you are using that aircraft there IS an impact on loading times caused by the large number of repaints in the selected aircraft folder. So move them.The idea of just dragging and dropping the folders is actually a good one, but what I do is simply copy the whole aircraft folder, replete with repaints and appropriately formed aircraft .cfg, into a folder away from the physical hard drive on which FSX resides, then go back and amend the simobjects folder original to remove the repaints and alter the aircraft.cfg leaving just the paints I am using. One quick defrag and you're good to go. This has the benefit of reducing the number of thumbnails, making the aircraft selection menu quicker to access (although if you just uncheck the `show variants` box I can't see what the problem is) and leaves the aircraft available for use whenever. Simple. Or be more hard-nosed and recognise you don't actually fly 90% of the repaints you download so delete them. You still have the zips if you want to put them in another time, right?...and then do the same with addon sceneries... Those big puppies can really slow down access time, and if you mount them on a physically separate hard drive, all you need to do is disable the ones for areas in which you are not flying in the scenery menu and again, you're good to go.