FSNavigator question (how to exclude stock airports)

[martinlest2 58]

I have an awful lot of airports in FS9 which show duplicate runways in FSNavigator, often at slightly different places or at slightly different angles: one set of data will be from a third party addon, and the other  from a stock FS9 airport. When I recompile the FSNav database, is there any way to exclude stock, FS9 airports for which there are modified (3rd. party) sceneries?

 

When I run the FSNav database, I could of course just exclude all the folders in the FS9/scenery folder, but then I wouldn't have any FSNav data for airports for which I only have the FS9 defaults.. Or, I could temporarily (just whilst I build the FSNav database) remove the AP bgl files, one by one, for all airports that I have as an addon scenery. But that'd take me all day, and more, by the time I'd located all the AP******.bgl numbers!! In any case, many AP bgl files contain several airports...

 

Any better solution anyone can think of?

 

Thanks.

[rainerk 1]

_{If FSNav sees two airports that means FS9 also will show two airports or runways.}

[hjwalter 25]

Very strange problem because third party addon airports will normally include Afcad files (AF2_XXXX.bgl) or other files containing comparable airport facility data. These files when active, should normally exclude default FS9 airport facility data from the corresponding APnnnnnn.bgl files and thus avoid visible duplicates in your FSNav map ..... and in FS9 itself.

 

All addon third party airports, including their Afcad files, should have a scenery library priority higher than any default scenery, in other words, should be at the top of the listing.

 

Hans

[martinlest2 58]

Thanks for the comments.

 

"If FSNav sees two airports that means FS9 also will show two airports or runways". No, that's not so. It hardly ever happens that two airports or runways are visible, even when AFCAD shows them both. Dozens and dozens of instances to back that up.

 

As for AFCADs, yes, I agree. All my addon scenery (and 99% do have their own AF2_ files) has a higher priority than the default FS9 scenery. So it is a mystery to me why AFCAD2 quite often shows me both the 3rds. party runway plus the AP******.bgl runway too (visible of course when they don't quite coincide).

 

As I say, I rarely get duplicates in FS9 - though it does occasionally happen - but it can be a little confusing at first glance to have this duplicate data in AFACD2.

[Mike777 163]

 

 

As for AFCADs, yes, I agree. All my addon scenery (and 99% do have their own AF2_ files) has a higher priority than the default FS9 scenery. So it is a mystery to me why AFCAD2 quite often shows me both the 3rds. party runway plus the AP******.bgl runway too (visible of course when they don't quite coincide).

 

The AFCAD2 program should show stock airports and all add-on AFCAD-type files as well.  I have found it to be very useful for detecting multiple add-on AFCADs for the same airport that can cause problems.  But as others have said, FS Navigator should only show the modified airport if there is one stock airport and one add-on airport (except info for older runway assignments sometimes sneaks in, such as the old Runway 27L/9R info when a new AFCAD with Runway 28/10 in it is installed).  So perhaps you should use AFCAD2 to see if there is more than one add-on airport file for an airport that is creating multiple entries in FS Navigator.  

 

Mike

[martinlest2 58]

No, I have searched thoroughly to be absolutely certain, including with ScanAFD & AFCAD2 and Windows search for the ICAO code and airport name - I definitely have just one 3rd. party AFCAD only for this airport.

 

In this instance, I have two runways showing in AFCAD2: one is for my Seychelles scenery addon for Praslin airport, FSPP, the other from AP962330.bgl, the FS9 file.  That's it. The FS9 airport runways shouldn't be showing in FSNav..

[Mike777 163]

In this instance, I have two runways showing in AFCAD2: one is for my Seychelles scenery addon for Praslin airport, FSPP, the other from AP962330.bgl, the FS9 file. That's it. The FS9 airport runways shouldn't be showing in FSNav..

 

It turns out I have add-on free scenery called Seychelles 2007 that includes this airport, and the runway is in a slightly different location.  But only one runway is showing up in FS Nav, the add-on one.  This is a real hair-puller. 

 

I notice that there are two different scenery.cfg files and I am guessing they have to agree.  One is in the FS9 base folder, the other in

C:\Users\[YOUR NAME]\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\FS9 (in Windows 7).  I don't have any other ideas, except SNavigator's database writing program may be reading more than one scenery-related file somewhere.

 

Another thing that occurs to me -- this is a long shot -- if you or a program renamed a bgl file but kept the extension ".bgl" it may still show up and be read.

 

Mike

[martinlest2 58]

Yes, there are two scenery.cfg files and they are not always synchronised for some reason. Not even sure what the purpose of the other file is, it doesn't seem to affect what you get in FS9.

 

Yes, my Praslin airport is in the same Seychelles scenery. I'll have another look and redo the FSNav database. But this instance is only noticeable as the runways don't exactly overlap. I get information from the default AP******.bgl files on all my FSNav airports - if I hover the mouse over parking spots, runways and so on, I do get the file name from the addon airport in question, but in a slightly different position I also get the AP...bgl name too. I assumed this was standard in FSNav.. I have used it on the three or four PCs on which I have had FS9 over the past ten years, and it has always been the same.

 

It's not a big deal, if odd, when runways and ILS frequencies are the same, but when they are different it is a bit more annoying..

 

I wonder why you only see one runway at FSPP and I see two?? If it were an isolated instance, as I say, I'd assume there was something strange in my Seychelles setup, but as it happens quite often and always has... A hair puller, as you say!

 

Will post back, thanks for the input.

[martinlest2 58]

OK, I redid the FSNav database, and now, at least at FSPP (I haven't explored others yet) the default AP file is no longer shown. No idea what may be different as I only recently ran the database editor and I haven't changed anything at FSPP since then...

Screenshot as an example of what I get (or, fingers crossed, 'got'??)..

[John Hinson 22]

There are a number of things that can cause this. I think what you will need to do is make the modified airport's co-ordinates match the co-ordinates of the FS default. Then FSNavigator should see it as one airport and only display the "top" version.

 

John

[Jive1 2]

Hey!

My experience in this respect is....

1° If the addon runway happens to be somewhat lower height than the stock airport runway, you can see sometimes both runways both in FSNav Map and as well as in FS9. I then make a flatten file on the height of the addon runway, and then the stock runway desappears? Why?... I don't know.

2° If the reference point of the addon runway is too far away from the reference point of the stock airport, sometimes the same happens. Just move the reference point of the addon airport towards the reference point of the stock airport, and there you get the correction.

These are two cases that I experienced, don't ask me for an explanation why this is so...

Greetz

Jive1

[martinlest2 58]

Interesting, I'll have a look at both these next time I see double runways. (Currently I use a batch file which removes any AP****** files that I see cause double runways before the FSNav database programme runs and which reinstates them when FSNavDb has finished. That works fine, it just means I have to add the information to the batch file manually each time I find a 'problem' airport).

[John Hinson 22]

Interesting, I'll have a look at both these next time I see double runways. (Currently I use a batch file which removes any AP****** files that I see cause double runways before the FSNav database programme runs and which reinstates them when FSNavDb has finished. That works fine, it just means I have to add the information to the batch file manually each time I find a 'problem' airport).

Hmmm - isn't that risking losing some airports altogether from the FSNavigator map? If I remember rightly some AP*.bgl files contain more than one airport and if one of those didn't have an additional AFD file you might lose sight of those?

 

John

[martinlest2 58]

Yes, you are right. I do in fact check that the AP file doesn't have any other airports in it first, or that they are small airports I am never going to fly to. It's a trade-off, but I prefer this way so that some airports I fly to regularly appear correctly on the FSNav map.

[hjwalter 25]

Hey Guys,

 

Just recently I've found another duplicate airport (VHHH) in my FSNav map and this specific one turned out to be impossible to correct.  First a little explanation of the causes:

 

These duplicates are commonly caused by rather simple differences in certain Afcad data elements, e.g. if the default AP file specifies the airport's name as "Chep Lap Kok Intl" while in the addon Afcad file it is named as "Hong Kong Intl", then (after the FSNav data base creation process) a duplicate airport, including possible runways with (slightly) different headings, etc, will most certainly appear. However, this example is only one of the many possibilities and this so called " simple header data" should always be checked first for differences whereby the default AP data should prevail.

For the real technical Gurus and/or perfectionists amongst you, it is also possible to disassemble the AP file concerned, edit e.g. the airport's name in that file and then re-compile it. This could e.g. be necessary if the modern name for this airport is in fact "Hong Kong Intl".

 

In my specific case the data elements, other than the simple header data, were so different and diffuse that the only way left open to me was to delete the existing AF2_VHHH.bgl Afcad file and make a complete new one via the Afcad program. A lot of work yes, but it did solve the problem.

 

I opened the default VHHH file in the Afcad program and without changing anything saved it as a new AF2_VHHH.bgl file. Only in this way were all the important "header data" elements copied from the AP file to this new Afcad file.  I then painstakenly proceded to edit the new Afcad file with the complete addon airport's ground layout.

 

Hope this gives you some new ideas.

 

Hans