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Importing Aircraft into FSX - Part II

By Dr. David Wilson-Okamura

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n part I, we gave some basic guidelines for Here in part II well describe some of the more common problems
converting aircraft from previous versions of and their solutions. My advice, if youre just joining us, is to go back
and read part I of this article (which you can purchase, if need be,
Flight Simulator to FSX. We reviewed the tools
from the Computer Pilot website), and practice the basic techniques by
you would need, common file and folder locations, converting one of the default aircraft from FS9, such as the Lockheed
and outlined procedures for three different scenarios: Vega or Ford Trimotor. Once you understand the concepts, youll be
conversion of an aircraft thats already working ready for the advanced techniques in part II.
for you in FS9, how to install an aircraft from a zip
archive, and how to deal with installer programs. We
showed how to add an FS9-style Aircraft folder for
converted aircraft and discussed thumbnails. Using
these techniques, its possible to use and enjoy a great
many of our favorite aircraft from FS9, both freeware
and payware. Some aircraft stubbornly refuse to
operate properly in the new sim, including the PMDG
747 and the Level D 767; these birds are grounded
until the developers come out with new versions that
are made specifically for FSX. But there is a large
middle category of aircraft that can make the jump,
but still need some tuning on the other side. For
example, the exterior model will transfer perfectly,
but the cockpit is missing gauges.

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Common Problems
To start Im going to describe, in step-by-step detail, how to convert
a specific item of payware, the Marchetti SF.260 from RealAir
Simulations. You may not own this particular plane, but the problems
Ill talk about are common to many converted aircraft, and so are the
techniques well use to solve them.

We begin with the aircraft already installed in FS9. (As I said in part
I, dont be in a hurry to remove FS9. Disk space is cheap and theres a
lot we can borrow from the old sim.) If, for some reason, you dont have
the Marchetti installed in FS9, my advice is to install it in a blank folder.
Do not try to install an FS9 add-on directly into FSX; it might work, or it
might make a big mess. Avoid the mess, install into a blank folder.

Using Windows Explorer, go to your old FS9 folder and open

the subfolder called Aircraft. Now start a second copy of Windows
Explorer, go to your FSX folder, and open the Aircraft folder there. (By
default, FSX doesnt have an Aircraft folder; I explained its usefulness
SF.260 missing textures
and how to make one in part I.) Ready? Now copy (dont move) the

subfolder named RealAir SF-260 from the Aircraft folder in FS9 to the
Aircraft folder in FSX.
How do we find the ones the Marchetti uses? Naming conventions vary,
but because our aircraft is made by RealAir Simulations, all of the files
were interested in start with the letters RAS: for example, RASSF260_
Canopy.bmp, RASSF260_Gauges_01.bmp, and so on. Because these
werent in the main aircraft folder, none of these files got copied over to
FSX. Aha! we think. That explains why we couldnt see them in FSX.
Ill just copy the extra textures to the Texture folder in FSX.

That doesnt work, though. (Ive tried.) Something is different in
FSX and aircraft dont look in the common Texture folder anymore.
Instead, we need to copy all of the RAS textures (the ones we just found
in the FS9 Texture folder) and paste them into the texture folders of this
particular aircraft. And since the Marchetti has eight different texture
folders (one for each paintjob), we are going to do this eight separate
times. Thats not an efficient use of disk space, but it works.

Main FSX folder

Lets see how that worked. We fire up FSX, create a flight, and
choose the Marchetti for our aircraft. We dont have any thumbnails
yet, but we know (from part I of this article) how to create them. Once
the flight is loaded, we do a visual inspection of the exterior. So far so
good, although the canopy looks opaque, grey instead of clear. When
we switch to the virtual cockpit, we notice more problems. First, most
of the gauges are missing, including the starter switches. We can start
the engine from the keyboard (with Ctrl+E), and the sound is all right,
but the prop looks wrong and the windows are clouded over with that Reload aircraft key
same grey film. These are all signs that textures are missing.

Missing Textures Now lets reload the aircraft and test. How do you reload an
In Flight Simulator, most aircraft store all of their texturesthe aircraft? Good news: you dont need to restart the whole sim, or even
digital paint that is draped over the aircraft skeletonin subfolders your current flight. Instead, select Options from the main pull-down
that begin with the word texture, such as texture.0, texture.1, or in the menu, then Settings, then Controls. Choose the Buttons/Keys tab and
Marchettis case Texture.GAERO. Sometimes, though, textures that then scroll down to Aircraft (reload). You can assign it to any key-
are shared by all of the liveries are located in a common folder that is combination you choose, but I use Ctrl + Shift + R. Click ok and youre
shared by the whole sim. This common folder, called Texture, is located back sitting in the cockpit again. We reload the aircraft (using the key
in your main FS9 folder. Looking inside, we find about 1,000 files, most we just assigned) and look around. The gauges are back, the canopy
of them ending with the extension .bmp. window is clear, and the prop looks normal.

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 inside. Using Notepad, open the file named aircraft.cfg. Scroll down
to the sections that begin [LIGHTS] and [EFFECTS]. This shows the
file names (with the .fx extension) of all the effects that the aircraft is
trying to use. Some of them are already present in your FSX Effects
folder. How do you know which ones? Look in your FSX Effects
folder. In this case, all of the files that are listed in the [EFFECTS]
section of the Marchettis aircraft.cfg file are already installed as FSX
effects; we dont need (and we dont want) to copy over the older files.
Its the missing effects that we need to copy overagain, copy dont
movefrom FS9 Effects to FSX Effects. In this particular case, we
need the two files that begin with fx_RAS and the eleven files that
begin fx_sf260.

We are almost done with the effects. Like aircraft, effects sometimes
have textures of their own. These are stored in the texture subfolder of
Effects. Scanning the list, we notice one with a file name similar to the
fx files we just copied over: SF260_SmokeWhite.fx. Copy this file into
the texture subfolder of FSX Effects. Thats it for effects.
SF.260 with textures copied
We reload the aircraft. The whiskey compass has settled down and
looks normal again. The nav and strobe lights come on and the cockpit
lights dont flicker.
Missing Effects
Were getting somewhere, but were not done yet. The first sign
of trouble is the whiskey compass: its spinning uncontrollably, even
though the plane isnt moving. If the compass were invisible, wed
suspect a missing gauge, but we can see the compass all right, so it isnt
that. Another problem is the navigation and strobe lights: they wont
turn on. Also, when we change the time to night, the cockpit lights are
flickering.

The clue here is lighting. In Flight Simulator, lights are usually
classified as Effects. The lights arent working correctly because the
Marchetti uses custom lighting effects, and those effects havent been
transferred yet. Using Windows Explorer, we go to the FS9 folder and
open the subfolder called Effects. Its full of files, all of which probably
end with the extension .fx. Which ones need to be copied over?

Extra lights

Only one problem remains: we now have extra strobe lights and
extra navigation lights. This is not a common problem, but Ill describe
the solution anyway. Using Notepad (or a similar text editor), open
aircraft.cfg again (the FSX copy, not your original) and scroll down to
[LIGHTS] one more time. Each light has its own line in the file, and to
remove it we add two forward slashes to the beginning of the line. This
makes the line into a comment rather than a command. Its not obvious
which lights to comment out, so we make some educated guesses. If we
guess wrong, we remove the two forward slashes and theres no harm
done. After some trial and error, we settle on the following changes:

//light.7=3, -3.30, -13.82, -0.05, fx_SF260_VCnavred

//light.8=3, -3.47, 13.85, -0.06, fx_SF260_VCnavgre
SF.260 effects files //light.9=2, -3.28, -13.75, -0.12, fx_SF260_VCLstrobe
//light.10=2, -3.50, 13.75, -0.12, fx_SF260_VCRstrobe
light.11=4, -2.40, -10.75, 1.80, fx_SF260_winglight
We could make an educated guess, as we did with Textures earlier, light.12=4, -2.40, 10.75, 1.80, fx_SF260_winglight
looking for files that begin with RAS. That would get some of them, //light.13=4, -17.4, 0.00, 2.40, fx_SF260_winglight
but not all. Fortunately, theres a better, surer way. Go to your FSX
folder, find the RealAir SF-260 folder that you copied earlier, and look Our favorite GA plane now works in FSX!

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Missing Gauges
Perhaps the most common problem, when converting aircraft to FSX,
is missing gauges. This is easy to spot, and usually easy to fix. Inside
each aircraft folder, there are a number of subfolders: Model, Panel,
Sound, and Texture. For gauges, were going to be dealing with the
Panel folder. Inside Panel, theres a file titled panel.cfg. Open this in
Notepad and look for lines that begin with gauge, such as:

gauge00=SF260!Manifold Pressure, 82, 34

gauge01=SF260!RPM Indicator, 232, 34

Lets look at the first line. SF260 is the name of a gauge file. The
file name is separated from the gauge name, Manifold Pressure, by an
exclamation point. When this happens, it usually means the file contains
several gauges. If theres no exclamation point, then the gauge name is
also the file name. Thats nice to know, but how does it help us? Its safe to click Run

When you transfer an aircraft to FSX and a gauge goes missing, its
usually because a gauge file didnt get transferred. By looking at the Replacing Obsolete Gauges
gauge lines in panel.cfg, we can find out what gauge files the aircraft is What if the gauges dont work? This can happen, especially with
trying to use. Question is, where do we find the missing gauges? older aircraft. Gauges that were made using the gauge-building
methods of Flight Simulator 98 or earliereven if the gauges were
Usually they are in FS9s main Gauges folder. Now that we know actually constructed in 2006 and worked perfectly in FS9are no
what the file names are, we can look for them in Gauges using longer supported in FSX. If you select an aircraft that uses them in its
Windows Explorer. Once weve found them, we have two options. We instrument panel, the aircraft will load, minus the offending gauge or
can copy (not move) them into FSXs Gauges folder, where theyll be gauges, but the sim will display the following message: This gauge
usable by any other aircraft that we transfer. (Some folks have gone was created for Flight Sim 98 or earlier; it is no longer supported.
so far as to copy all of their FS9 Gauges into the FSX Gauges folder,
just to save future hassle. This can work, but be very careful not to
overwrite newer, FSX files with older, FS9 files of the same name.)
The second option, for cautious types, is to copy the gauges you need
into the new aircrafts Panel folder. The advantage of this is that if you
decide later to remove the aircraft from FSX, you can just delete its
aircraft folder, and all of its unique gauges will be removed as well.
(You can do this with FS9 as well. Before it looks in the Gauges folder,
an aircraft will look for gauges in its own Panel subfolder, and if it finds
them there it wont look any further.)

Confirming Gauges and Modules

When you load a new aircraft for the first time, FSX will frequently
ask you to confirm the publisher, gauge, or module. It may do this for
every new gauge, and if there are new gauges in the virtual cockpit
(VC), it may ask you to do it twice. Generally speaking its safe to click
FS98 gauges wont work
Run (for so-called unknown publishers) and Ok (to trust gauges or
modules). This is cumbersome, but if the gauges work then you only
have to do it once.
To solve this problem, you need to substitute a modern gauge that
does the same thing. For an example of a successful substitution, look
in the AVSIM file library for Bill Lyons Travel Air biplane (tamo_fsx.
zip), which Bill Schulz has updated for FSX using gauges from the
default Beaver and other aircraft.

Lets say the offending gauge is a fuel indicator. Well get rid of it by
editing the aircrafts panel.cfg file, but first lets make a backup copy;
that way if something goes wrong we can start over. Now well open
panel.cfg. The error message told us the name of the offending gauge,
so its just a matter of searching panel.cfg for all occurrences of that
name. If the aircraft has a virtual cockpit, there will probably be at least
two. Lets say the first one reads like this:

gauge05=obsoleteaircraft!fuel_gauge, 128,0,128,128

This is a fuel gauge, and its one of several gauges in a file named
Click Yes to trust old modules obsoleteaircraft.

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 The first thing we need to find is another fuel gauge. Lets make
this easy and use one from the FSX default planes. (Were not limited
to default gauges, but we know these will work.) Now, where are the
default planes? Theyre in the SimObjects folder, under Airplanes.
Pick an aircraft that has a gauge similar in shape, size, and style to the
one you need to replace. For example, if you need gauges for a vintage
airplane, try borrowing them from the default Douglas DC-3. (The
Lockheed Vega, which we converted from FS9 in part I of this article,
also has lots of gauges that look good in vintage aircraft; another source
is the Piper Cub.)

To make this gauge usable for other aircraft, we have two options.
We can either copy (not move) the DC-3 gauge file into the main
Gauges folder, or we can copy the file into our converted aircrafts
panel folder. The advantage of putting it in Gauges is that other aircraft
FS98 gauge that we add later can use the same file.

We copy the DC-3s gauge file into the main Gauges folder and
Using Notepad, we open the DC-3s panel.cfg file (which is located reload the aircraft one more time. The new gauge should now appear on
in the DC-3s panel subfolder). Scanning the gauge entries, we find a the instrument panel, in roughly the same location as the old one. We
fuel gauge: may need to adjust its height and width, by editing the last two numbers
on the gauge definition line (in our example, 128 and 128). Unless
gauge30=Douglas_DC3!fuel_gauge, 928, 374 we have a panel editing program, such as FS Panel Studio, well need
to experiment with different values, saving panel.cfg each time and
We want to copy just part of this line to the clipboard: Douglas_ reloading the aircraft. The main thing is we now have a working gauge,
DC3!fuel_gauge. Again, the exclamation point tells us that fuel_gauge and if there are more obsolete gauges in the aircraft we are trying to
is actually one of several gauges in the Douglas_DC3 gauge file. Now convert, we know how to replace them. Q
we go back to the panel.cfg file for the aircraft we are trying to convert.
Using Notepad again, we replace the old gauge file and gauge name
with the new one, pasting from the clipboard. When were done, the
line looks like this:

gauge05=obsoleteaircraft!fuel_gauge, 128,0,128,128

Notice that we didnt change anything but the file and gauge name;
gauge05= stayed the same, and so did the string of numbers at the end.

We save panel.cfg and reload the aircraft. The error message is gone
(at least for the fuel gauge), but the new gauge isnt showing on the
panel. Why not? It all depends on where the DC-3 is getting its gauges
from. If theyre in the main Gauges folder, then any aircraft can use
them. What do gauge files look like? Usually, their file names end
with .gau, .cab, or for newer gauges .xml. We know from the DC3s
panel.cfg that the name of the gauge file begins with Douglas_DC3,
but theres nothing like that in the main Gauges folder for FSX. Then
we remember: gauges can also be hiding in an aircrafts panel folder.
Sure enough, if we look in the DC-3s panel folder, we find the file:
Douglas_DC3.cab. Successful conversion

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