Hello AllI have been trying various framerate friendly freeware airport add-ons ,two in particular from framerate friendly studio's VOMM (chennai) and VIDP(Mumbai )VOMM is fine ,but with VIDP I have a problem, If I am creating a flightplan in FSNav and select VIDP all that airports gates ,parking spaces etc are shown in FSNav ,but the runways do not show at all(they do in the map) but not in the selection screen.VOMM on the other hand is fine gates,parking spaces etc AND the available runways are shown in the selection box and I can of course pick the one of my choice.I have a feeling this could be an AFCAD thingy problem ,I am wondering if I have inadvertently deleted the original FS9 afcad. I have tried deleting the Add-on VIDP scenery to see what happens with the default, and even that does not show the runways in the selection box of FSNav.both sceneries DO show in the FSNAV map with there runways and both sceneries display correctly if I move an aircraft to them.If anybody can understand what I am on about, then help would be appreciated.cheers Andy

You can only get rid of the default afd properties (afcad) by modifying the default APxxxx files in the various world scenery folders. Once in a while a freeware author will replace those but not FRF. I never let that happen as the APxxxx.bgl files contain multiple airports. I am not familiar with how FSNAV builds its scenery data. Ideally it should use your scenery.cfg. After you add or delete or make inactive a scenery you should again run the FSNAV rebuild. It is possible a special exclude containing file was placed in add-on-scenery\scenery or other generic folder which would prevent the runway data from getting into FS Nav. Load up afcad (and don't save anything) but do an airport search for VIDP. Open each layer (default is at the bottom) and examine it. For each layer do a file/properties and write down the full path that afcad shows. Note whether runways are shown in each layer path and which ones are blank. Note the layer order when doing this. There may be a totally blank layer of special properties. If you have AFX you can use this as its I believe what FRF uses now. Don't try to save or modify an AFX file in afcad221. It could wreck it. See what other paths exist for these layers. Generally, you only want the one(s) in the author's scenery folder and the stock files APxxxxx.bgl Check the VIDP readme for special installation instructions looking for any file placed in other than the author's scenery. Provide a link for that VIDP scenery and we can look at it. ADE9 will show AFX files correctly. Finally, some utilities only look in Add-On scenery to get information and don't include information outside of that. Is VIDP a new airport or a mod of an existing one. Finally I have an FS9\FSX utility by Pete Dowson that searches all scenery files as listed in your scenery.cfg and takes priority into consideration. FSUIPC is not required. It creates a database but also a log of what it did. Besides being used for a database build in RC4 it can be used as a diagnostic by viewing its log. If need be we can get into that and hunt down what might prevent at least the stock runways from showing up. Remember any time you add or delete scenery (or modify) your FS Scenery Lib Settings you need to close and restart FS so it rebuilds its index. You then close FS before rebuilding scenery databases such as in FSNav..

This is almost certainly a problem with the method the now obsolete FS Navigator uses to display data on the map. There are usually ways round this. A couple of possibilities to try:

1. Try moving the A&F Data (AF2 etc) file to a higher layer than the rest of the scenery to load last.
2. Check the airport co-ordinates are identical in the new A&F Data file as the Microsoft default arrangement.

John

I have now done something else (again I know not what) but after umpteen attempts at fiddling and twiddling and running the fsnav data base creator etc etc and opening FS9 and selecting VIDP and seeing yet again gates ,parking but no flippin runways. I have just once again opened FS opened FSNav selected VIDP fully expecting the usual no runways, but for some reason in FSNAV this time, their they are .So I seem to be in business again.Ronzie!Thank you very much for your detailed attempt to help me solve this problem.I have to admit that my knowledge of this particular area of FS knowledge is rather (unlike your own) somewhat limited .As the gods of mysterious FS happenings have come to my aid I won't pretend to have understood all of your post ,but it was nonetheless much appreciated.PS.Can you tell me where addon sceneries are best placed in the scenery priorities selection screen in FS9 ?CHEERS Andy PPS The VIDP I now have is the default one.So I will again try and install the FFSs version.I have had no problems with there other sceneries, VECC and VOMM.

FFSs VIDP also working now as well ,with runways ,which is after all rather important at an airport.cheers Andy

I have a folder on my FS partition (hard drive assignment area) called Common Add-On Scenery. Under this I place add-on scenery (except for the occasional file that requires placement under add-on scenery such independent ILS fix files). In the scenery lib settings I go to this folder and then the new added folder under that and leave it near the top priority (lower number). I also have a folder on that drive call AFCAD2s (with a scenery folder under that for various afd files). That is at the top (lowest number) if I need to force a specific afd file to top priority. Now some developers, like Aerosoft, create a branded folder under FS9 and place their various scenery folders in that. That's OK. Sometimes there installer modifies scenery.cfg directly usually witghout a problem. Anyway, when there is a choice, I place an add-on scenery in my Common Add-On Scenery folder (in my case H:\Common Add-On Scenery) which at top level in the disk hierarchy is easy to browse to and add it to the scenery lib. So I have H:\Common Add-On Scenery\newsceneryfolder\ with its scenery and texture folders under that. If your add-on download is a zip look at the file structure before you extract it. If it consists of sceneryname with sceneryname\scenery and sceneryname\texture plus any readmes extract it keeping folder names direct to the Commom Add-on Scenery folder you created. If not extract it to a temporary folder (I create an folder called instsceneryname) and extract to that. I then under Common Add-On Scenery create scenery-name with scenery and texture folders under that and copy the files in the temporary install folder I created to the scenery and texture folders for the new add-on folder I created under Common add-on scenery. I'll use the same process for a downloaded .exe installer file installing to a temporary inst---- folder unless it is a commercial product from a trusted developer which may not let me choose a folder. It is simpler to do this process than describe it. I need to preview what some .exe installers do. I want to prevent APxxxxx modifications especially. Often I will back up my entire hd before doing any kind of installation to make recovery possible. I do a drive to drive image copy.