Switzerland professional 2004 and small airfields

[Herman Leusman 0]

Hi, A few days ago I baught Switzerland Professional 2004 scenery. I used to fly to the litlle airports, f.e. the freeware airports of DAniel Gauthier, Andreas Hegi (a.o. Sion, Sch

[Guest jimkeir]

Hi.There are two places which define the airfield elevations in FS2004; the flattens (which cause the sometimes visible platforms or trenches around airfields) live in the FL9*.BGL files and the airport definitions (including the 'logical' elevations used for the runway altitude, ILS, airport elevation) live in the AP9*.files.It sounds like the terrain looks OK but the airport elevations are off; you would be seeing things like runways and aprons suspended in mid-air or underground. The solution is to edit the AP9*.BGL files.There's a program called 'newbglanalyze' which will disassemble the AP* files. You should then be able to edit it to include the fixed heights and recompile it. If it's the flattens that are causing problems, you can use LWMViewer to do the same thing. The AP* files will need the new scenery SDKs from Microsoft to recompile, the FL* files need the older one (for FS2000/FS2002).Alternatively, if this is commercial scenery you're using, how about bugging the manufacturers to do it for you? :-saeRegards,Jim Keir

[Herman Leusman 0]

My dear Jim,What a complete answer. I will try the programs that you've mentioned. At least there is some hope now..I've also send an email to the manufacturer of the commercial software. I didn't get an answer yet, but it might be an answer like "we're not responsible for the freeware add-ons that are not compatible with our software..". On the other hand: I think that the elevations in Switzerland Professional 2004 are much more correct than the ones in the defaultscenery.So I will see what's happening, disassemble the ap files.. or use the LWM viewer.thanks for your advice,Herman

[Guest jimkeir]

Hi.> might be an answer like "we're not responsible for the freeware add-onsAh, yes. Sorry, I'd missed that bit and assumed it was the default airports you were having trouble with. It's still the same principle though - disassemble the freeware airports and modify them to have appropriate elevations. I think the easiest way to get the *right* elevation is to check the display inside the sim and subtract about 1.5m.If the freeware is for FS2002 instead of FS2004, "bglanalyze" won't work but I think there are other tools which will (possibly AFCad, but I haven't used it myself). If you absoultely can't get the airports fixed, you could maybe 'unfix' the terrain by creating flattens at the height the airports are at.Cheers,Jim Keir

[Herman Leusman 0]

Jim,discouvering a whole new world, let me ask you another question:I try to use newbglanalyze and I possibly might be able to fix that bgl files. But: The program says that I have older BGL files. This program only opens new BGL files.. Are there more recent MSFS 2004 programs that use different files?? Anyway, I understand the manual (I suppose) but this doesn't seem to be the right program.I downloaded the LWM viewer, but this seems to be a bit to complicated for me.What are scenery SDK's?Learning learning learning. I used to learn in a school and not at my computer, quite new! And thanks again, master Jim.Herman

[Guest jimkeir]

Hi.OK, it sounds like the freeware airports you have are designed for FS2002 or older. Microsoft changed the way some files are written in FS2004, and newbglanalyze is intended for use with these newer files.LWMViewer won't show the contents of either new *or* old AP files (not yet, anyway ;) )So... you need to find a program which will disassemble the old-style AP files. I haven't tried this but I'm sure that something's out there. Try searching for "afcad140.zip" in the file library here, this looks appropriate and may let you just edit things directly.If not, you need to disassemble the files. Disassembling converts them from the BGL format to something more-or-less human readable, depending on your definition of human :D Then you change the appropriate bits and recompile it into a new BGL using the appropriate software.The Scenery SDKs are "Software Development Kits" provided by Microsoft. They contain documents and programs to allow you to build new BGL files - in other words, you need one of these programs to rebuild your edited version of the file into a BGL. Hope this helps.Cheers,Jim Keir

[Herman Leusman 0]

Hi Jim,I'll try the afcad140 first. I saw that ALL my bgl files in MSFS 2004 are written in the "old" language.. So not only the freeware airports but also all my default BGL's.Herman