Bob Holland.com

Flight Sim and Me
Or, "What we can and cannot do".

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I found Bruce Artwick's original Flight Sim very useful and inexpensive in improving my proficiency when I was working on my private pilot's license.

I still have the program and run it once and a while to remind me of how impressed we were with the simple boxes and circles for graphics back then.

I just had to get FS9 the day it came out. "As Real As It Gets", yes that's when you open the box but then you go on the Internet and find new planes and improved scenery and terrain.

I keep adding new stuff that I find and enjoy exploring it with almost any plane that I like.

What bugged me is that I flew out of New Jersey and there are a lot of things that I am familier with that are missing.
FSDS

I started working with FS Design Studio Pro and found it to be a great tool for building objects that I needed like hangers, buildings, lighthouses, etc.

The down side is .....

You need to determine and tweek the exact lat. and log. for the object.
The object faces north. You need to "select all" then "R" and rotate the drawing to where you think it should be. Compile and load Flight Sim to see if it worked.
Hint: Load FS, fly to where you can see the object, hit "P" for Pause and exit. Next time you load FS, select "Previous Flight" to get the same view again.

This rotation method is not kind to animated objects.
Another problem is that you now have a scenery (bgl) file for every object that you created.

ASD

Then I decided to try Airport and Scenery Designer.

The up side is....

Generate a Macro with FSDS and simply add it to a map in ASD.
Change the parameters to set the rotation, altitude and other features.
All your additions are now in a single .bgl file.

The down side is....

The Macros are just little triangles in ASD.
Each time you load a project, you must select all the objects that you want included before you compile.
You need to load FS, take a look and then go back to ASD and nudge the little triangles to where you think they should be and then load FS again.
Terrain elevation is also a big problem.

If a macro is on a slope, part of it will be buried.
Runways Rule. They will carve their own way and generate new terrain and you will have to set the altitude to make it look good. There are no options in FS for runways that are not flat. I can think of a few that are higher in the middle then they are at the ends.
Roads, railroads, water and other objects do not rule and don't follow the terrain. They will appear and disappear as you fly over them.

The Scenery Apprentice looks like a good idea but it does NOT work with FS9.
FSDS and ASD are great for what they do but there must be a better way to place and view enhancements to Flight Sim scenery.