As with freeware scenery, most freeware aircraft come packaged into zip files.

Read the scenery installation page to see how to open zip files, and extract their content. For this subject we will assume you are already happy with that side of things.

There are one or two different ways of installing aircraft files, and their panels/sounds, this is the way I recommend:

 

When your aircraft has been correctly installed, it will have the following groups of files:

 

1. In the main FS "Aircraft" folder will be a folder with the name of your new aircraft type (we'll call it the "Type" folder from now on).

 

2. In the Type folder will be four sub-folders as follows:

You will notice in the Type folder are the following files... a file ending in ".air" and "aircraft.cfg". These files provide the parameters that decides how the aircraft behaves, how much fuel it holds, etc. Some designers include two text files - one called "check.txt" and the other "notes.txt". These are created when a checklist is produced (it's called the "kneeboard" in fs2004), or when the Notes part of the checklist/kneeboard is edited. They are not required for the aircraft to work.

 

a.    "Panel"            (Contains "panel.cfg" and the .bmp files for the panel itself)

(There may be one or more .bmp files. It depends how many windows the panel has been designed with. For greater detail - see the panel installation page).

 

b.    "Sound"          (Contains "sound.cfg" and possibly a number of .wav sound files if it's a third party addon)

There may, or may not be .wav files in the "Sound" folder. The default aircraft have their files centralised, so if you use the default sound.cfg file, there is no need to copy the .wav files into your new aircraft. Third party sounds downloaded from the internet are usually enhanced, and the sound.cfg file will require them to be in the "Sound" folder with it.

c.    "Texture"         (Contains either .bmp files, or files ending in .0af, 1af etc)

Textures produced for FS2000 and 2002 are usually extended bitmaps (.bmp) They are very much better than the older .*af textures used by FS98 and before, because they support special effects such as night lighting and transparency. Also, .bmps support more colours than .*af files, so liveries can be more accurate. If you see an aircraft advertised as for fs2004 or Fs2000, but the zip files contain files ending in .0af, .1af, .2af, then it was originally designed for FS98 or earlier.

d.    "Model"           (Contains "model.cfg, and a file ending in ".mdl")

Sometimes, an aircraft zip file will contain other model files ending in "*.mdl.nmp" or "*.mdl.mpi". These are older model files that contain the original aircraft before it was modified to have moving parts such as ailerons, elevators etc. You'll normally only see it if the aircraft is an old converted model. The *.mdl.nmp mdel file can be renamed to "*.mdl" to provide an aircraft without any moving parts. This is handy if you want an aircraft to display properly in programs such as "FS Traffic", or to convert properly for use as a scenery macro.

When you open the zip file, if there are pathnames then it's simply a case of extracting into the main aircraft folder, using the "use folder names" option,  but if there are no pathnames, then refer to the above, and create a Type folder in the main FS folder with the name of your new aircraft.

Next, inside that folder, create the four folders I have described above, and extract the correct files into them.

If an aircraft zip file doesn't contain the panel or sound .cfg files, then copy and paste the default files across from the same type of aircraft (eg, for a helicopter copy the Bell panel & Sound .cfg files, or for a turbo prop, the King Air, etc)

 

If you still have problems contact one of the Managemnet via the website