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Please see the most recent updates in the "Where did the .com name go?" thread. Posts number 16 and 17.
Hangar Program for FS2004
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Mick
SOH-CM-2025
Yep, the program is called Windows Explorer. You make a folder called Hangar and you just cut and paste the aircraft you're not using into it. It couldn't be more simple and easy, and it's already installed in your confuter.
To make it even easier to use, make a shortcut from your Aircraft folder and put it in your Hangar folder, and put a shortcut to your Hangar folder in your Aircraft folder. Then you can just drag and drop the aircraft from one folder to the other without even having to open the other folder.
If you want to, you can put sub-folders in the Hangar folder for categories like Big Props, Small Jets, Floatplanes, etc.
I'm sure that if you look around, you'll find that some software publisher has written and packaged a way to do the same thing with their own proprietary interface, and they'll be very happy to take your money for something that can't possibly be easier, and is probably more complicated.
To make it even easier to use, make a shortcut from your Aircraft folder and put it in your Hangar folder, and put a shortcut to your Hangar folder in your Aircraft folder. Then you can just drag and drop the aircraft from one folder to the other without even having to open the other folder.
If you want to, you can put sub-folders in the Hangar folder for categories like Big Props, Small Jets, Floatplanes, etc.
I'm sure that if you look around, you'll find that some software publisher has written and packaged a way to do the same thing with their own proprietary interface, and they'll be very happy to take your money for something that can't possibly be easier, and is probably more complicated.
I don't know if this is the answer to end all answers, but I thought about that when I set this thing up. What I did was make a folder within each sim's Aircraft folder, and name it "Panels." I then transplanted each aircraft panel into that folder (i.e., DC-3, DC-6 & 7, 737s, etc). Next step was to copy the config file for that panel to a master "panel config" file, and change the config file to route to the "Panels" folder and the specific panel file within that folder. Then just place the new config file in your aircraft's "panel" folder - it should be the only one there. That way, you can have 50 DC-3s (for example) that all use one panel because the panel config file in the individual aircraft file's "panel" folder will automatically roll over to the main "Panel" folder in the sim. You don't have to have 50 panels for the DC-3s - just one master panel the others can slave off of by using the alias in the altered config file. I've found the same thing works for engine sound files as well. Just make sure you name the master engine sound folder "Sounds" instead of "Sound."
Motormouse
SOH-CM-2025
IIRC the late Rana Hossain's 'Flightsim Manager' will do that.
You should be able to find version 3.2 at the usual places, and you'll also need the runtime patch
from 'Flightsim.com'
ttfn
Pete
You should be able to find version 3.2 at the usual places, and you'll also need the runtime patch
from 'Flightsim.com'
ttfn
Pete
Mick
SOH-CM-2025
That reminds me, in earlier versions of FS (and in any version where you make and name such a folder) there's a folder in the Aircraft folder called FSFSCONV. It stands for Flight Simulator Flight Shop Converter (or maybe it was Flight Shop Flight Simulator Converter) and it's just a folder to hold any panels and sounds that you want to use for multiple planes. You just aliased those planes to the appropriate panels or sounds in that folder. It's the same as what you do except that you have separate folders for panels and sounds.
Aside from doing this, you can save a lot of dragging and dropping and aliasing if you just make sure to keep the default planes in your Aircraft folder, since the vast majority of planes that you will download that don't have their own panels or sounds will be aliased to the panels or sounds of one of the stock planes.
Wing_Z
Charter Member 2011
Disk Space is Cheap
When FS9 was invented, 100MB was a lot of file space.
SO there was a real need to alias sounds and panels and gauges to preserve precious disk real estate.
These days, I just keep everything to do with an aircraft in its aircraft folder.
There is plenty of duplication of course, but on a 1TB disk, what's 100GB?
It's gotten to the point where I'm too lazy even to move aircraft around: I have folders called aircraft and aircraft1 and aircraftnewzealand which have huge overlap, but contain everything I want for a particular flight situation. I just rename the folder I want to "aircraft" and the sim reads the contents!
I think it's quicker in loading, too.
Instead of 1,000 planes all cross aliasing to panels and gauges and sounds, I have maybe 200 per folder, complete.
And the same goes for the sim itself: there are several installations, each with a favoured texture set and perhaps historical date setting.
Three or four of these don't even use up half the available disk space.
Just one more reason to stay with FS9...
When FS9 was invented, 100MB was a lot of file space.
SO there was a real need to alias sounds and panels and gauges to preserve precious disk real estate.
These days, I just keep everything to do with an aircraft in its aircraft folder.
There is plenty of duplication of course, but on a 1TB disk, what's 100GB?
It's gotten to the point where I'm too lazy even to move aircraft around: I have folders called aircraft and aircraft1 and aircraftnewzealand which have huge overlap, but contain everything I want for a particular flight situation. I just rename the folder I want to "aircraft" and the sim reads the contents!
I think it's quicker in loading, too.
Instead of 1,000 planes all cross aliasing to panels and gauges and sounds, I have maybe 200 per folder, complete.
And the same goes for the sim itself: there are several installations, each with a favoured texture set and perhaps historical date setting.
Three or four of these don't even use up half the available disk space.
Just one more reason to stay with FS9...
I'm thinkn' how I can set this up, and it leads me to another question. Within FS9 is there a folder or file that lists the "Aircraft Manufacturer" info from the "ui_manufacturer =" line in the aircraft config file or is this list just created every time you restart FS9. Using this info one could create a "Hangar" fold with sub-folders of each manufacturer. This would be much like I have my addon scenery setup I have a region such as "United States" as the main folder, with all 50 states as sub-folders, or "South America" with all the countries that make up South America as sub-folders.
Wing_Z
Charter Member 2011
It reads the aircraft.cfg file each time FS starts.
All aircraft are read from the "aircraft" subfolder, no further subfolders allowed.
E.g. "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Games\Flight Simulator 9\Aircraft\SOH-C1A"
But nothing stops you from naming the aircraft subfolder to whatever you like.
E.g. "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Games\Flight Simulator 9\Aircraft\Excellent SOH-C1A"
When I had a lot of airliners in one install I renamed them according to airline in the cfg file for ease of use in the sim.
E.g.
ui_manufacturer=Alitalia
ui_type="Airbus A320-214"
ui_variation="Frédéric Chopin"
and of course this shows up in the sim as Alitalia
All aircraft are read from the "aircraft" subfolder, no further subfolders allowed.
E.g. "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Games\Flight Simulator 9\Aircraft\SOH-C1A"
But nothing stops you from naming the aircraft subfolder to whatever you like.
E.g. "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Games\Flight Simulator 9\Aircraft\Excellent SOH-C1A"
When I had a lot of airliners in one install I renamed them according to airline in the cfg file for ease of use in the sim.
E.g.
ui_manufacturer=Alitalia
ui_type="Airbus A320-214"
ui_variation="Frédéric Chopin"
and of course this shows up in the sim as Alitalia
nigel richards
Charter Member
A lot of common sense advice soundly aired.
I would add just two thoughts.
1. Why duplicate sounds with all the many aircraft involved in a reasonable fs collection?
The sounds don't even have to be in FS!
My PC has two disks; C. and D (slave).
D has bags of memory, so I have just one Fs sound folder (aptly named; Fs sound!) on my system, holding every set of aircraft sounds I possess.
This way, I can keep track of all the sounds spread among my aircraft.
You may for example have 10 variations of the PW R-2800 - by suitably naming each version, you can quickly align any newly imported aircraft to the most suitable R-2800 version (twin, four engined, single, fast, heavy etc etc).
This brings me to the second point;
I think it was Obio who started us off on multie Fs installments.
By having 2 or more installments (I currently run 6 + 1 as it comes from the box for reference) on your system, you can immediately de-congest your sim(s). Both regarding aircraft folder size and addon scenery as well.
The variation is endless - you could make custom fs versions tailored to your peronal needs - military, civil, WW1/2, airshow...etc.
Also, if like myself, you are always searching for better scenery improvements, you can use the various fs installs with different versions of trees, clouds, waves, autogen etc.
I would add just two thoughts.
1. Why duplicate sounds with all the many aircraft involved in a reasonable fs collection?
The sounds don't even have to be in FS!
My PC has two disks; C. and D (slave).
D has bags of memory, so I have just one Fs sound folder (aptly named; Fs sound!) on my system, holding every set of aircraft sounds I possess.
This way, I can keep track of all the sounds spread among my aircraft.
You may for example have 10 variations of the PW R-2800 - by suitably naming each version, you can quickly align any newly imported aircraft to the most suitable R-2800 version (twin, four engined, single, fast, heavy etc etc).
This brings me to the second point;
I think it was Obio who started us off on multie Fs installments.
By having 2 or more installments (I currently run 6 + 1 as it comes from the box for reference) on your system, you can immediately de-congest your sim(s). Both regarding aircraft folder size and addon scenery as well.
The variation is endless - you could make custom fs versions tailored to your peronal needs - military, civil, WW1/2, airshow...etc.
Also, if like myself, you are always searching for better scenery improvements, you can use the various fs installs with different versions of trees, clouds, waves, autogen etc.
I can see that from all these inputs this is going to take some planning. The reason I stated thinking about this is I have a new PC coming and when I set it up I want to organize it a little better then what I have now. I have always had riggs balanced to performance and not storage, for the first time I will have both performance and storage, new setup will have 1 TB HD main and 2 slaved, 2 TB HDs slaved. I have FSX and FS9 and have given thought to installing both, but I lean towards one FS9 install. (I just don't like the way FSX is setup, just my opinion, not trying to start no wars). With a total of 5 TBs, storage should not be an issue. I also do wood work (Scroll Saw) and keep a lot work with the patterns I use, as well on my PC. Based on Nigel's input I may leave out FSX and go with some FS9 Multiple installs. New PC should arrive sometime next week, so I have some time to think this through and come up with a good plan of action.
Nigel:
Well said, sir!
I myself have four FS installations (5, counting the untouched master sim on another drive), each with their own aircraft, scenery and sound folders. Subtle differences between sounds (single -2800, twin -2800, for instance) are distinguished by two separate master folders in the "sounds" file, if there is a difference between them. There are probably 50 or so aircraft engine sound files for each sim. Different configs for each go in respective aircraft. Same thing for panels. I know I have tons of memory, tons of space - but it never hurts to conserve space when possible. Look at how much more you can pack into the fun with the saved space! Just have a kick for efficiency, I guess.
T-Square - sounds like the beginnings of a great new adventure. I've never installed FSX, don't even have it, in fact - I think it would be hard to improve on FS9. Sort of like the way the Navy just couldn't replace the A-6, it was that good.
Well said, sir!
I myself have four FS installations (5, counting the untouched master sim on another drive), each with their own aircraft, scenery and sound folders. Subtle differences between sounds (single -2800, twin -2800, for instance) are distinguished by two separate master folders in the "sounds" file, if there is a difference between them. There are probably 50 or so aircraft engine sound files for each sim. Different configs for each go in respective aircraft. Same thing for panels. I know I have tons of memory, tons of space - but it never hurts to conserve space when possible. Look at how much more you can pack into the fun with the saved space! Just have a kick for efficiency, I guess.
T-Square - sounds like the beginnings of a great new adventure. I've never installed FSX, don't even have it, in fact - I think it would be hard to improve on FS9. Sort of like the way the Navy just couldn't replace the A-6, it was that good.
Nigel
Beyond the fact that I have an investment in FS9 (I have purchased quite a bit of payware over time) I just don't care for FSX and the new Flight Sim MS has come out with in my opinion is a rip off. To me it's like someone says I got this great new chess game on line, you have to purchase the board first, now you only get the black squares now later will had the white of course you will have to purchase the additional white squares. Now as a teaser will start you out with a black and white King, later (at an additional cost of course) we will add queens, pawns, knights, etc; until you have the complete set and actually play an entire chess match. At this point we will go offline end support and leave you with nothing but an empty wallet and some useless software, and when you complain that you miss your chess game, guess what we'll come out with the new and improved chess game. It will be so improved that there can,t be any backwards compatability, so open that wallet again boys and girls. Well I'm way off the subject now, I think I'm going to sit down with a cup of coffee and paper and pencil and come up with a lay-out. I pretty much got my scenery the way I want it without to many changes, but have never really played with the aircraft file. I have a set-up just like this for the aircraft from HJG site I have installed pretty much as you suggest. The panels and sound files are in the "fsfconv" and aircraft are aliased as required, this does save a lot of space. I can see a lot more than one cup of coffe. It's a good thing I like this part all most as much as I like flying.
Beyond the fact that I have an investment in FS9 (I have purchased quite a bit of payware over time) I just don't care for FSX and the new Flight Sim MS has come out with in my opinion is a rip off. To me it's like someone says I got this great new chess game on line, you have to purchase the board first, now you only get the black squares now later will had the white of course you will have to purchase the additional white squares. Now as a teaser will start you out with a black and white King, later (at an additional cost of course) we will add queens, pawns, knights, etc; until you have the complete set and actually play an entire chess match. At this point we will go offline end support and leave you with nothing but an empty wallet and some useless software, and when you complain that you miss your chess game, guess what we'll come out with the new and improved chess game. It will be so improved that there can,t be any backwards compatability, so open that wallet again boys and girls. Well I'm way off the subject now, I think I'm going to sit down with a cup of coffee and paper and pencil and come up with a lay-out. I pretty much got my scenery the way I want it without to many changes, but have never really played with the aircraft file. I have a set-up just like this for the aircraft from HJG site I have installed pretty much as you suggest. The panels and sound files are in the "fsfconv" and aircraft are aliased as required, this does save a lot of space. I can see a lot more than one cup of coffe. It's a good thing I like this part all most as much as I like flying.
SOLOBO
Charter Member
ACMan . ( Aircraft Manager )
http://software.filestube.com/download,7876c602,Aircraft+Manager.html
It was designed for cfs2, but it works very well for FS2004. Small (366ko), simple, clear.
Just unzip and put the ACMan pgm in the main folder of FS2004, and you can create your subfolders, as several virtual hangars.
One thing: all the aircraft must be in FS9 main folder, and of course on the same physical or virtual disk.
That's it.
Cheers,
Frédéric