Why is London Heathrow so far out in FS2004

[Guest dougbr2000]

I was wishing to create an accurate AFCAD file for EGLL using data files from the UK Civil Aviation Authority. This document gives all the lat/long positions for almost everything at EGLL including runways, parking stands etc.On trying to place parking stands to the default EGLL I found that the stand placement was wrong. Upon investigation it seems that EGLL is misplaced in our FS World.The Centre point of runway 09L/27R in the real world is N51.2839W000 27.41. This means that the MSFS runway is in actual fact 489 meters too far North and 295 meters too far West. So all objects at EGLL are misplaced by this margin.The problem comes if I make a new accurate AFCAD it's position in the FS World puts it outside the airport area in FS using the photo scenery for Heathrow or default. How can I create a new scenery area around Heathrow so that it is a true representation. E.G at the moment runway 27L is heading into one of the Western reservours. Which program would you recommend for creating a scenery area around Heathrow.I also checked Gatwick airport and it too is way out in comparison with the real wrorld data. I think placement in FS should be more accurate, if I can get this info I am sure MS can get more deatialed data.Is there a way of selecting all in AFCAD and move it all together to the new lat/long.Any help appreciatedDouglas.

[GHD 21]

>Is there a way of selecting all in AFCAD and move it all>together to the new lat/long.You can select all of the taxiways, aprons parking etc by holding down the key during selection, however, for a detailed airport like EGLL you could easily miss a few. The other thing is that you can only drag them you cannot rotate.GeorgeYou may also like to check out this topic: http://forums.avsim.net/dcboard.php?az=sho..._id=26637&page=

[Guest luissa]

Hi Douglas,I have no data for British Airports but the location of the main MS airports is OK. That is not the case for small airfields. Using the values of N51.2839 and W000 27.41 I note that the precision in the N/S direction (W/E is more elaborated) is about 11.1 meters unless you mean N51.28390 in which case the precision would be 1.11 meters.However you need to verify if the lat/lon values for the center of the runways are in the so called WGS1984 datum. If the values refer to a different datum, then the discrepancies that you point out come from this.Regards, Luis

[Guest dougbr2000]

Thanks George and LuisGeorge, I will try what you suggested about dragging the grouped items.Luis, The lat/longs are from actual UK CAA AIP doc which has very accurate lat/long info of all aspects of the airfield. The parking stands back up the large difference in relation to the FS positions which seem to be based only on the airfield lat/long position and even that is wrong the official airfeld lat/long is N512839 W0002741The FS is N51286500 W000276833 quite a large difference. These airfield docs can be obtained from. www.speedbirdonline.co.uk/charts.htmlI would have thought that MS would have used real life lat/long data as used by all authoroties around the world for airport layout and abject positions basically those used by aircraft navigation systems.Thanks again for the help and have a look at he data on the site above all are downloadable pdf files free of charge also links to other countries sources. Any additional comments would be welcome.Best RegardsDouglas

[Guest luissa]

Hi Douglas,I tried to access the AIS for UK but could not register. The form reports wrong lenght for the username that I choose. I tried several times until I gave up.Luis

[Guest dougbr2000]

Check your private messages box for solution.Douglas

[Guest luissa]

Hi,Thank you for the solution. I looked to data and I looked to the Jeppensen data for Heathrow. Here is what I get for Runway 9L/27R:London, GBRN 51

[Guest bones]

>The official airfield lat/long is N512839 W0002741>The FS is N51286500 W000276833 quite a large difference. You are reading the FS values wrongly. Latitude of the airport is 51 Degrees 28 Minutes and 39 seconds North. In FS the readout is 51 Degrees 28.65 Minutes. You have to watch those decimal minutes.28.65 minutes is 28 Minutes and 39 seconds. Spot on.All ILS runway data in FS2004 is taken directly from the Jeppesen database and it really is quite accurate.boneshttp://fsaviation.nethttp://www.precisionmanuals.com/images/forum/ng_driver.jpg

[Guest dougbr2000]

Thanks Luis and bones.Now I understand that AFCAD and FS are using similar but different readings though they are in actual fact the same. Thank you all very much for your help and Luis I hope the info at speedbird will help you with future projects.Best Regards

[GHD 21]

Douglas,If you insert the following line into the {MAIN} section of your FS9.cfg you will have coordinates displayed to 4 places of decimals in the seconds field:DISPLAY_FRACTIONAL_MINUTES=0George

[Guest dougbr2000]

Hi GeorgeThnks for the tip about the cfg it works a dream. All these little tricks if only there was a site that listed them all it would be great for all FS users.Douglas