Since I tend to only fly commercial jets and now after purchasing the PMDG products am I safe in moving the default aircraft to a temp directory for safekeeping? This will then present me with a very compact fleet to choose from.Thanks

Why not simply copy the SimObjectsAirplanes folder out somewhere, then delete the Airplanes folder? The worst that can happen is that FSX won't start..Actually, and less obvious..... FSX does use a number parameters from the 'Default Flight' in setting up the aircraft when loading the next new flight, so at a minimum you will need this one. There is also a downloadable Default Flight file available(which I have) in case it cannot be created.

Thanks Paul I will experiment with this.

Taking the C172, shutting everything down, leaving the radios on, and saving this as the "Default Flight" will probably suffice, Phil. It sounds a like worthwhile and fun thing to do, as - I must confess - that 172 is the only one I fly out of the bunch, and editing each of the individual cfg's so they won't show - is a pain.

You may want to leave the AI aircraft..

Actually it's best to copy the entire FSX directory to somewhere else for backup. You'd be surprised how many times said strategy saved my skin.Cheers,- jahman.

If you want the default aircraft to not show up in your aircraft selection all you have to do is go into each default aircraft's folder and change the name of the Panel folder to anything different (like "panelx"). This will cause FSX to not see the "panel" folder as specifed in the aircraft.cfg file and therefore it will not show up when you want to select an aircraft.

Some addon aircraft use items from default aircraft such as Sounds from the Extra 300 or the 172, so if these are removed you won't be able to hear them.Cheers,Clem

I will have to go back and check the AI aircraft, I use MyTraffic so I am still seeing a lot of AI planes. One thing that I did discover is that removing the trike pops an error which you can click through. I moved it back into the folder but all in all I now have a tidy select aircraft screen.