RC4 not identifying certain airports?

[John Hinson 22]

I cannot start a flight from DAAE Bejaia, Algeria. After positioning the aircraft there, when I load the Flight Plan, RC whisks the aircraft off to a point in the middle of the sea - 0 degrees N and 0 degrees E I think.I'm thinking this is because DAAE doesn't appear in a4.csv and r4.csv. As these are (I think) regenerated when Make Runways is run, I can't understand why there is no entry there? I'm on:FS v9.1RC v4.3.85Make runways v4.43I have an add-on scenery (with its own AF2 file) but it is a stock airport aswell of course, so surely one or the other should be being read in?[Area.575]Title=DAAE Bejaia AbaneActive=TRUELayer=575Local=Addon Scenery\AFRICA\DAAE Bejaia AbaneJohn

[ronzie 21]

I think we have had complaints about DAAE before but I'll list some things to check anyway if nothing turns up in this forum:1. Make sure you ran the scenery rebuild from within the RC folder for your version of FS. RC must have been set for admin rights under VISTA and WIN 7.2. Check the modification dates in the data folder under RC to insure a4.csv and r4.csv were updated at the time you ran the scenery rebuild. If not updated and you have a dual FS installation then make sure you entered the correct path for FS from the rebuild started from the RC folder for that version of FS. For a dual installation you should have two RC folders.3. If there is a current date for r4.csv and a4.csv then open in notepad r4.csv and searching for DAAE. Look at the runway and center coordinates and note them according to the following field layout (there may be an additional field added at the end):ICAO, Rwy*, Latitude*, Longitude*, Altitude*, HeadingMag, Length*, ILSfreq*, Width*, MagVar, CentreLatitude, CentreLongitude, ThresholdOffset*Then go to the folder for the FS version you used. Open runways.txt in wordpad or word (it will take a while to load). Search for DAAE. A default airport has I believe one section per section. Add-ons have two sections per airport - an exclude section and then an airport properties section with runways, navaids, parking, taxi nodes, etc. Find the last pair of entries for DAAE and insure the airport facility data is in there. The last section for DAAE should look similar to this example extract for DAAG:..\..\..\AFCAD2S\scenery\zAF2_DAAG.bgl=============================================================================Airport DAAG :N36:41:28.4677 E003:12:56.5841 82ft City Name="Algiers" Airport Name="Houari Boumediene" in file: ..\..\..\AFCAD2S\scenery\zAF2_DAAG.bgl Runway 9 /27 centre: N36:41:29.0184 E003:11:23.6456 82ft Runway 9 closed for take-off Runway 27 closed for landing Computed start 9 : Lat 36.691734 Long 3.169777 Computed start 27 : Lat 36.691055 Long 3.210027 Hdg: 91.200 true (MagVar -1.000), CONCRETE, 11769 x 148 ft Primary ILS ID = HB Primary ILS: HB 108.50 Hdg: 91.2 , Flags: GS BC "ILS 09" *** Runway *** DAAG0090 Lat 36.691734 Long 3.169776 Alt 82 Hdg 92 Len 11769 Wid 148 ILS 108.50, Flags: GS BC *** Runway *** DAAG0270 Lat 36.691055 Long 3.210027 Alt 82 Hdg 272 Len 11769 Wid 148 Runway 5 /23 centre: N36:42:12.6212 E003:14:09.7086 82ft Runway 5 closed for landing Runway 23 closed for take-off Computed start 5 : Lat 36.694267 Long 3.220511 Computed start 23 : Lat 36.712746 Long 3.251549 Hdg: 53.400 true (MagVar -1.000), CONCRETE, 11300 x 197 ft Secondary ILS ID = AG Secondary ILS: AG 110.30 Hdg: 233.4 , Flags: GS DME BC "CAT II ILS 23" *** Runway *** DAAG0050 Lat 36.694267 Long 3.220511 Alt 82 Hdg 54 Len 11300 Wid 197 *** Runway *** DAAG0230 Lat 36.712746 Long 3.251549 Alt 82 Hdg 234 Len 11300 Wid 197 ILS 110.30, Flags: GS DME BC COM: Type=8 (APPROACH), Freq=121.40, Name="Algiers Approach" COM: Type=5 (GROUND), Freq=121.80, Name="Algiers Ground" COM: Type=6 (TOWER), Freq=118.70, Name="Algiers Tower" COM: Type=10 (CENTRE), Freq=127.30, Name="Algiers Control" COM: Type=9 (DEPARTURE), Freq=121.40, Name="Algiers Approach" Taxipoint #0, type 1 (normal): N36:42:45.3071 E003:15:04.4096 -- Forward Taxipoint #1, type 4 (ILS Hold Short): N36:42:47.6070 E003:15:02.4881 -- Reverse Taxipoint #2, type 1 (normal): N36:42:47.8014 E003:15:02.3013 -- Forward Taxipoint #3, type 1 (normal): N36:42:48.6113 E003:14:57.0982 -- Forward Taxipoint #4, type 1 (normal): N36:42:40.1887 E003:14:42.9088 -- Forward Taxipoint #5, type 1 (normal): N36:42:32.1873 E003:14:23.1995 -- Forward Taxipoint #6, type 1 (normal): N36:41:31.9663 E003:12:44.1068 -- Forward Taxipoint #7, type 1 (normal): N36:41:30.8001 E003:12:42.0260 -- Forward Taxipoint #8, type 1 (normal): N36:41:27.8198 E003:12:33.4581 -- Forward Taxipoint #9, type 1 (normal): N36:41:33.3916 E003:12:33.3422 -- Forward Taxipoint #10, type 1 (normal): N36:41:36.6311 E003:12:31.8100 -- Forward--------continued--------No further deletions should follow. Note the file path for the scenery, the airport coordinates, and the runway coordinates. Match them (using position format conversion if necessary) to insure they match the coordinates in r4.csv and a4.csv.Next open up your flight plan in word. Check the airport coordinates there against this data. Here in FS9 format is the data for DAAG:departure_id=DAAG, N36* 41.40', E003* 13.01',+000082.00waypoint.0=DAAG, A, N36* 41.40', E003* 13.01', +000000.00, if you are using FS9 format and there are two beginning duplicated fields at the beginning of waypoint lines RC4 might have a problem.The coordinates listed for DAEE are from Wikipedia:36°42′43″N 005°04′10″E. In a4.csv they should be 36.71 and 5.08 roughly. In your flight plan it should be N36* 42.72, E005* 04.17 roughly.So after determining the coordinates in a4 and r4 data is near, then check your flight plan coordinates to make sure they are very close.Let us know how you get on. If you still have a problem if all looks correct then send a log to jd per the procedure at the forum top.Also, can you provide a link to your download if DAAE is freeware scenery?

[John Hinson 22]

I think we have had complaints about DAAE before but I'll list some things to check anyway if nothing turns up in this forum:[snip]

Thanks very much for the detailed and helpful reply.Having run out of time for the intended flight yesterday I spent some time studying the scenery. It is daae2005.zip available at flightsim.com.It works "straight out of the box" and RCv4 will recognise it correctly. The A&F data is contained in a 14kb file named (unusually) daae.bgl. However, as installed the four gates are 18 metres in size which is useless for the jet airliner traffic that serves the airport. Aircraft such as MD80s will just not show.If that file daae.bgl is modified with AFCAD v2, AFX or ADE (adjusting the gate size, nothing else), suddenly RC/Make Runways ignores it. Altering the gate sizes makes no difference to the size of the file. And if modification of the file will result in loss of a critical piece of data not normally found in an A&FD file, AFX (and, I suspect, ADE) would normally warn you but no such warning is given in this instance. I have tried both with the modification as a replacement and as a supplementary file in a higher layer.The modification works perfectly in Flight Simulator but for some reason causes RC to ignore it. As a reasonable dab hand with A&FD modifications this leaves me completely puzzled. I know the "official" answer is to not meddle with the scenery but it seems pointless to have a nice add-on airport which its scheduled traffic cannot serve.Reference your notes and suggestions

• Am using Windows XP SP3 (sorry, should have said)
• "As installed" DAAE generates the correct entries in runways.txt, r4.csv and a4.csv
• In modified form, runways.txt shows the default airport correctly, and the "delete all" entry but no entry for the replacement data. This is presumably what is causing the lack of entry in a4.csv and r4.csv.
• Flight plan correctly shows departure_id=DAAE, N36* 42.72', E5* 4.17', +000019.69 and waypoint.0=DAAE, A, N36* 42.72', E5* 4.17', +000019.69,

For the moment I can manage by keeping a note of the data and manually adding it if I want to make a flight from DAAE, but this certainly puzzles me. (I'm assuming the data in runways.txt is only used to generate a4.csv and r4.csv and serves no direct purpose in RC?)Just out of interest, what is likely to be the result if I fly to DAAE? Will things go awry on arrival at the end of the flight?Many thanks again,John=======================================================================UPDATE . . .Solved, I think!Closer study of the daae.bgl shows that the author has (for unknown reasons)closed both ends of the only runway to landing and take-off. This was automatically being passed to the modified A&F data files. Removing that restriction seems to cause DAAE to be correctly recognised by RC.(Such restrictions will be ignored by FS itself, which is why the airport appeared to work correctly, but presumably MakeRunways rates it as a "non-airport")I will try a flight later but am confident all will be fine as all entries in files look correct.John