Am I right in thinking that as long as two or more aircraft share exactly the same .mdl file, their texture folders can be bundled into one 'umbrella' a/c folder and so share the same aircraft.cfg file? Would the .air file need to be the same as well?I ask as I am trying to tidy up my main FS9 aircraft folder and there seem to be one or two a/c that, although they use exactly the same .mdl file, fail to show any textures if I make them use the same folder and aircraft.cfg file. Can't work out why ....One other question - I find one or two of my a/c downloads come with two .air files. Why would there be two such files included for just one aircraft, and with two in the folder, which one of them would FS9 choose to use - and why? Questions, questions, questions ... !!Many thanks for your answers!Martin :-)

Yes, just look at the default aircraft.. examples..JohanA LITTLE LESS CONVERSATION, AND A LITTLE MORE ACTION PLEASE!HELP:http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=238882

You certainly can combine your aircraft as you mentioned as long as the basic acft.cfg is the same. What you need to do is add a new {fltsim.X} section for each variant. Within that {fltsim.X} section you will define which .air file, texture folder, model folder, etc is to be used with that particular variant. See below and note that I am substituting { and } for the square brackets actually used in the acft.cfg:

{fltsim.0}  [font color=red]<------------------------advance 1 number for each variant, ie {fltsim.0}, {fltsim.1}, etc.[/font]title=AIA B744D_All-Nippon Airways[font color=red]<--Each variant must have it's own unique title[/font]sim=aia_747_400d_ge  [font color=red]<---------------This defines the .air file to be used, in this case "aia_747_400d_ge.air"[/font]model=dge_no_refl	[font color=red]<---------------defines the model folder to be used, in this case "model.dge_no_refl"[/font]panel=  [font color=red]<----------------------------each variant may use a different panel folder if desired, define alternate panel folders here[/font]sound=  [font color=red]<----------------------------each variant may use a different sound folder if desired, define alternate sound folders here[/font]texture=All-Nippon Airways  [font color=red]<--------defines the texture folder to be used, in this case "texture.All-Nippon Airways"[/font]kb_checklists=kb_reference=atc_id=N747atc_airline=All Nippon atc_flight_number=1123atc_heavy=1ui_manufacturer=Aardvark  [font color=red]<----------Aircraft appears under this manufacturer in the "Select Aircraft" dialog[/font]ui_type=Boeing 747-400D   [font color=red]<----------Aircraft appears under this manufacturer > type in the "Select Aircraft" dialog[/font]ui_variation=All-Nippon Airways   [font color=red]<--Aircraft appears under this manufacturer > type > variant in the "Select Aircraft" dialog, (variant must be unique)[/font]description=A Boeing 747-400D by AI Aardvark designed especially for AI traffic.atc_id_color=0000000000visual_damage=0atc_parking_types=GATEatc_parking_codes=ANA

As Johan said, the default aircraft are good examples.Best wishes,Jim

Hi. Actually I am OK with rewriting or editing the aircraft.cfg itself; I've read through the Aircraft_Container SDK.doc file several times in the past, so am reasonably confident about editing various a/c charcteristics. I had missed somehow the .air file specifier line though (sim=), (blind, or daft, or both) so thanks for pointing that out Jim!The only variant on your example is that some time ago I rewrote all my a/c cfg files so that look like this, for instance:ui_manufacturer=Air France ui_type=Boeing ui_variation=747-400.. which gives me a choice of planes at startup based on airline rather than type - much more useful I find, especially now I have so many planes to choose from - my a/c folder is over 10GBs in size by this stage (hence the spring cleaning).What I wasn't sure about was why some a/c won't show textures when I group them together in the same folder in this way, even though they share the same .mdl file. If there's no reason, then maybe I was just making a mistake somewhere along the line - must double check that mdl files with the same name actually are the same!I'm going to go through all my a/c today, so will post back here if I encounter any unexpected problems,Thanks again, Martin

You didn't mention that you also added texture=xx callouts for each of the added entries. And I assume you moved the texture directories into the combined aircraft directory?The most common mistake I make is not creating unique title=xx entries for each {flightsim.x} entry. But if you don't do this, then the aircraft won't show up. You also have to correctly number the Flightsim.x entries so that no numbers are skipped or duplicated (I don't think they have to be in order though, although this is probably a good idea as well). In your case, it sounds like the aircraft is showing up but without textures.Here's a typical flight sim entry for me{flightsim.0}title=Gulfstream Version 2sim=ldgvmodel=panel=sound=texture=GV1kb_checklists=GV_checkkb_reference=GV_refatc_id_enable=1atc_id=YV-669Cui_manufacturer=Gulfstreamui_type=GVui_variation=Gulfstream V LDV2description=Gulfstream V By LiderDesigns n Textures VC model and flight din. by Peter Brunn 6,500 nm 12,046 km MACH 80 with 8 pax, 4 crew NBAA and IFR reservesatc_airline=Lider Toursatc_flight_number=atc_heavy=0visual_damage=1atc_parking_types=GATEatc_parking_codes=INTatc_id_color=0xff000000Note that each texture directory must have a unique extension, such as in this case, texture.GV1, where the callout is GV1 in the above listing. The title should be unique for each entry. The {} should be square brackets. Hope this is helpful, as it sounds like you are already familiar with this stuff. n prints as a carriage return in the description.Thomas[a href=http://www.flyingscool.com] http://www.flyingscool.com/images/Signature.jpg [/a]I like using VC's :-)

Titles and textures are relatively OK I find - it's easy to see in the cfg file if you've made a mistake, and as you say, when no plane shows on the screen you know something is amiss! The biggest pitfall I find is asuming that, because a .mdl or .air file has the same name, it is the same file. You have to check the file size and date, because otherwise you can end up making false assumptions and get no a/c on your screen!I am about 2/3 of the way through this task - and I have found several problem files so far, but managed to sort them all out. The best thing, apart from the nice tidy a/c folder that is taking shape (great for future a/c downloads), is that I have learnt quite a bit about the aircraft.cfg file and how to edit it beyond the basics.M. :-)

BTW, the aircraft [flightsim.x] numbers DO have to be in order, and if you skip one by mistake, all the subsequent a/c after the error will be missing from the sim!M. :-)

Martin, Be careful. Some aircraft might use what appears to be the same airfile and model, but have different filght characteristics based on different passenger or cargo loads or other FDE elements contained in the aircraft.cfg itself. You might see different aircraft flight behavior by consolidating too much. Also, renaming aircraft folders may cause other utilities (load utilities, texture installers, configuration managers or fuel calculators etc.) not to recognize the installed aircraft.http://www.commerciallevel.com/base/suppor...46supporter.jpg

Yes, a good point. I did look out for this - up to a point - and have really only put a/c such as like Meljets or like iFDG into the same folder. I also kept a copy of the original folders, so I'll look through them with MS Word merge & compare to see if there is anything vital I have mistakenly thrown out - babies & bathwater and all that...I did test each change of folder at least as far as the FS9 'select an aircraft screen' - if I got a black screen instead of a revolving a/c, something was obviously wrong! - so I think that I sorted all mdl/air issues, but I will go back tomorrow and double-check what you say.Otherwise, the FS9 aircraft folder looks really neat now (in all senses!), with aircraft arranged very logically (IMHO) according to type and designer, so In think I've had a good day's work. (And it did take ALL day!),Thanks again for the reminder,Martin

I caused myself a problem once trying to consolidate all of my EvolveAI a320 liveries into one folder when I mistakenly tried to assign a set of IAE (engine type) textures to a variant associated with the CFM model. The IAE textures are named "EvolveAI_A320_IAE_t.bmp" where the CFM textures are "EvolveAI_A320_CFM_t.bmp". Obviously the CFM .mdl file was looking for the latter and the aircraft showed up "naked" in the preview window until I got it sorted out.Check to see if the texture filenames for the variants that work match the filenames for the ones that aren't showing up. Maybe you need to be using a different .mdl with those particular textures. The heck of it is that sometimes the .mdl's will have the same filenames and only the folder name will be different. For (hypothetical) example, the folders "model.iae" and "model.cfm" may each contain a model file named "a320.mdl". By checking out your texture filenames you should be able to either confirm or rule out usage of an incorrect .mdl file as the problem.Hope you get it straightened out soon,Jim

Jim,Hi again. Not quite sure I have understood this particular problem - all the textures are obviously in discrete folders, and I have copied over multiple .air files and model folders as necessary, then edited the aircraft.cfg file to point to the model folder required by the a/c. As far as I can see all my a/c have full textures now, but if I come across any problems I can deal with them at that time.Since I have renamed a lot of the aircarft folders I now have to go through all my saved flights (hundreds of them!) and edit the Aircraft= line to point to the new name - otherwise FS crashes when loading the flight.Pity we can't earn money doing this!M.

By way of a P.S. to my last message - I realise that changing the name of the aircraft folder doesn't affect the loading of saved flights (.flt) as FS searches the aircraft cfg files for the title of the plane, immediately below the [flightsim.] number. The name of the folder in which the cfg file is kept is irrelevant.So much the better - saves me more hours of editing. I can actually do some flying!M