This post is in reponse to a request following something I wrote in the "MSFS (2020)" forum. As this post contains some large image files I'm posting it here as per the Mods' request in the original forum.

My original post was in response to a question involving linking to the MSFS "Official" folder, and in that response I mentioned that I have moved my default aircraft folders out of the Official folder and manage them via the Addons Linker. I said then that it was a little bit more complicated and that I'd elaborate later.

So here I am!

Firstly, let me say I'm not particularly recommending this as any kind of useful tip. It's a particular thing of mine that I like to keep whatever sim I'm running as clear of clutter as I can, and only have it supply those facilities I actually want to use.

I treat all my sims as primarily world exploration toys, rather than any kind of tool to learn how to fly any aircraft. I'm not interested in mastering the complexities of flying an airliner, or planning a flight and all that stuff. If I can start on the runway with the engines running and ready to go - I'm happy.

That's not to say I don't like aircraft. I have always been interested in airplanes since I was a kid, and have a pretty extensive collection of aircraft books and magazines etc. And the sim is a great way to get to play with those, of course. But all want to do is to have a good quality visual model of any plane I like that I can load, get in the air, fly around in, and get back on the ground again reasonably safely. I will usually record the flight, and then I get my main pleasure watching the replay from outside the cockpit, and seeing how the flight looks in the scenery, weather, lighting conditions etc.

As a result of this, I have literally hundreds (actually thousands) of addons I can use in the sim. Thanks to the wonders of the Addons Linker I can of course choose to load only those addon aircraft and sceneries that I want for any session, and not have to load up the PC with everything all at once. And with my sort of collection of addons that really does make a difference for load times and also of course reduces the chance of conflicts that could kill the sim.

I'm already quite well set up for that as far as the community folder addons go, but I found myself wondering if I could get the same flexibility with the default aircraft. I used to do this with P3D - I had a hangar there with probably two or three hundred aircraft but I ran by default with none in the global simobjects\airplanes folder - I just copied what I wanted into that before I started the sim. First time I removed all the default aircraft there I was amazed how much quicker the sim loaded. I expected that with scenery but not with aircraft.

So I decided to try and do the same thing in MSFS. I realise I could just uninstall individual aircraft, but I wanted to see if I could use the linker.

At first, I just copied all the system aircraft folders ("asobo-aircraft-xxx" and "microsoft-aircraft-xxx") out from the MSFS Official folder into my own set of addons folders for the aircraft, and then uninstalled each aircraft within the sim. This would have meant that when selected within the Linker they would be linked into the Community folder. That didn't work out too well. I found that a several aircraft would keep getting re-installed every time I started the sim. I eventually figured out that some aircraft were required because they are used by features like the MSFS Bush flights, exploration trips, training flights etc. And even if I selected those aircraft via the linker they seemed to be needed in the official folder, rather than the community folder.

I have since un-installed all that stuff as I'm never going to use it anyway, and went for the approach I've described in the following pictures.

In the first image, you can see my basic layout.

In the second image, you can see I have a higher level category breakdown for my aircraft in the addons section, and then a discrete folder for each of the MSFS default aircraft. This doesn't include folders for aircraft bought via the MS Store, as they seem to be ok to run out of the community folder. When I created these folders, I copied (not moved) the original folders from the official folder, and then removed the originals by uninstalling them in the Content Manager. I know some of these folders are encrypted, and that can cause problems copying them depending on what you use to do the copying. Windows File Explorer probably won't let you do that but most competent addon file managers will do it no problem (and let you remove the encryption flag as well). Personally, I use Directory Opus and have done for decades.

Once you've got your default aircraft folders in place within your Addons Linker "Official" folder tree, you then need to associate each aircraft with your own equivalent folder as a dependency.

The next image illustrates that, in this case for the FA 18 Super Hornet. The idea is that you make the default aircraft folder a dependency for ANY entries you might have in your own aircraft folder. For instance, I have folder for liveries in each of my own aircraft folders, and I want to be able to invoke the default aircraft even if I only want to use a single livery with it. In the image, once this is all set up I can either select the main entry for the FA 18 in my own list, which will bring in the default aircraft and all the liveries, or just any combination of liveries on their own which will also bring in the default aircraft.

Which is what the next image shows. In this case, I just activated a single FA 18 livery in the linker, and that livery has then been linked into my Community folder, but the default aircraft itself is a dependency for anything in my own aircraft folder, and so that default aircraft folder is then linked into the MSFS Official folder automatically.

One thing you have to watch out for is things like this - I use (and really like!) the Savage Grravel but that requires the default Zlin Savage Cub to be loaded as well, so the default Zlin Savage Cub folder needs to be set as a dependency not just for my own Savage Cub folder (where I keep liveries for the default Savage Cub) but also for the Grravel Cub folder. Same is true for things like the Bush Cessnas etc.

So, once again, I'm not suggesting this is a great idea or that anyone else should do it, but it is something I wanted to do and I was asked about it so this is being posted in case it can help anyone else.

It's actually encouraged me to think more about dependencies in the Linker - I might play with setting a few other combinations up.

Two last things - I also have a batch file that deletes the "content.xml" file for MSFS each time I exit the linker and start the sim. Always a good idea if you're constantly messing with the content in the sim.

And if anyone is doing this whole "linking the default aircraft" thing already and has got a much simpler and cleaner method of doing it, I'd be more than happy to hear about it. I'm not a fan of complexity for its own sake by any means.

Thanks Andy, great info and Directory Opus  is something I have not heard of and will potentially purchase to go with this helpful storyboard.  BR.

M.