FS2004 - aircraft compatibility with FS2002

[Shaka 2]

Hi there,I read a few posts about loading FS2002 aircraft into FS2004. I remember that Microsoft saying that it would be backwards-compatible, as long as the designers followed the SDK. However, some people have mentioned problems with panels, saying that the gauges end up being the wrong size.Well, I just tried loading my own aircraft into FS2004 (...a Socata TB-9 and a Pilatus PC-9), and they worked fine. For the most part, my panels used default gauges, and this leads me to think that any aircraft that uses default panels/gauges will have no problems under FS2004. This was true in both the 2D and 3D panel. I did create a couple custom gauges, and they also show up fine. These custom gauges were the new style ".cab" files.Also, another observation was that there were no more reflections and/or "dynamic shine" in aircraft. This is also false. Reflections and dynamic shine show up nicely on both of my aircraft. Dynamic shine was the only technique I used to make my windows reflect (no textures). It is probably true that the default aircraft don't have dynamic shine, but this was true in FS2002 also. I believe that a third program called "middleman" was needed to create this dynamic shine effect for GMAX/makemdl users, so default aircraft did not have this. This could also be affected by individual settings on different computers - anyway, dynamic shine shows up fine on my system.Finally, due to my complete lack of motivation to learn anything new, all my aircraft and scenery were designed using FSDS2/scasm... and it all works. That's right, anyone who thought that FSDS2 was dead was wrong. My aircraft and scenery all work as well as they did in FS2002. The only discrepency I noticed was some of the airport skirtings weren't excluded properly (nothing to do with either FSDS2 or GMAX). Also, some of the airports have moved a little bit, so some adjustments will have to be made, of course.Anyway, before you give up on all your favourite FS2002 add-ons, try them out in FS2004. You may be surprised at how well things have turned out.- Martin