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| Posted by adrian on Tuesday, March 07 @ 07:21:14 EST
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 So you've been to the File Library and found yourself a great freeware plane to add to your Flight Simulator 2004 collection. So how do you install it?
Firstly a couple of assumptions:
· This tutorial assumes that you know your way around Windows explorer and can create folders and move files between folders.
· You should have a ZIP utility installed and have some familiarity with extracting files from an archive. If you're using Windows XP you can use the Compressed Folder feature to extract the files. If not, a popular program is WinZip.
· We're only concerned with aircraft that DON'T come with an installation program. Many are distributed with auto installation programs and adding them to FS2004 simply requires following the on-screen instructions.
Downloading and Extracting Archives
When you download a ZIP archive from a file library it's a good idea that you save it in a location that is easy to find. I personally keep all of my FS downloads in a separate folder on a totally separate hard drive. I also have some of them separated into download types. For example: Aircraft, Scenery, Utilities, etc. This way everything is neatly organised and I have a space away from the FS installation folder to extract the archives in preparation for installing them.
Once you have your ZIP archive saved to your FS downloads folder you can extract the files. If you are using a ZIP utility such as WinZip you should be able to Right Click on the archive and select the 'Extract to folder...' option. Using the Windows XP Compressed File feature you simply Rich Click and select 'Extract All...’. Doing this will create a new folder containing the contents of the archive. Now we're ready to install these files, but first we need a bit of an understanding of the FS2004 file and folder structure. |  |
Flight Simulator Folder Structure
Go ahead and navigate to the Flight Simulator installation folder. By default this will be C:Program FilesMicrosoft GamesFlight Simulator 9. There a few folders here that are of interest to all FS2004 users but for now we will concentrate on the Aircraft folder. This is the folder where all aircraft files reside. Not only the add-ons we'll be installing but the default aircraft as well. If you navigate into a few of the aircraft folders that already exist you'll find a common directory structure. Each contains most of the following sub-folders: model, panel, sound and at least 1 texture folder. (Some aircraft may not have all of these folders. These are generally AI aircraft and may not always be flyable). If you take a look at the folder you extracted from the ZIP archive you should find a similar structure.
Note: You will often find that the folder extracted from the ZIP archive, contains the actual folder that will be installed into the flight simulator aircraft folder. Just to be sure, the folder that contains the same folder structure as those in the existing flight simulator aircraft folders is the one we will be installing. Copying the wrong folder is a common mistake when installing add-on aircraft. |  |
Installing the Aircraft
Open up two Windows Explorer windows and simply copy the folder extracted from the ZIP archive into the flight simulator aircraft folder. That's it! You can now start Flight Simulator 2004 and take your newly installed aircraft for a spin.
Every so often you'll come across an aircraft that won’t appear in the list of installed aircraft from within Flight Simulator. If this is the case you might have to try and locate it by selecting 'Any' from the Aircraft manufacturer list. The manufacturer, model and variation are all associated with settings in the aircraft.cfg file inside the particular aircraft folder. To fix this problem you can open the aircraft.cfg file in any text editor such as Notepad. The following variables can be found in each of the [flightsim.X] sections:
ui_manufacturer=XXXXXX - This is the value that displays in the Aircraft manufacturer list.
ui_type=XXXXXX - This is the value that displays in the Aircraft model list.
ui_variation=XXXXXX - This is the value that displays in the Variation list.
Knowing how to change these settings is useful when you want to ensure a particular aircraft appears under the correct manufacturer instead of the name of the developer, which is often the case.
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