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  • Please see the most recent updates in the "Where did the .com name go?" thread. Posts number 16 and 17.

    Post 16 Update

    Post 17 Warning

My Sim Objects/Airplane hangar is too full.

grog swiller

Members +
A few months ago I did a reinstall of FSX, and only reinstalled my favorite five planes. My load times have been very fast, and when I'm flying my scenery updates very fast. Here's my problem, I decided to reinstal alot of the planes I have, and now load times and scenery refresh rates have dropped.

Would it be possible for me to create "hangar space" in my airplanes folder? Simply a folder where I can put planes I don't fly much, but still want to fly every so often? It could either be a cut and paste back and forth between the "hangar" and the "airplanes" folder, or just rename the new hangar folder "airplanes" when I want to fly them (and concurrently rename the original airplanes folder "airplanes2" to keep it out of the way).

I think it may work, but I can see where I may be trying to outsmart myself here. I don't want to be in a situation where I screw things up, or find out FSX is still loading my new hangar behind my back. Any thoughts?
 
Would it be possible for me to create "hangar space" in my airplanes folder? Simply a folder where I can put planes I don't fly much, but still want to fly every so often? It could either be a cut and paste back and forth between the "hangar" and the "airplanes" folder, or just rename the new hangar folder "airplanes" when I want to fly them (and concurrently rename the original airplanes folder "airplanes2" to keep it out of the way).
Either method would work. I have a folder outside of the main FSX install where I keep aircraft folders that I am not currently into flying for one reason or another but I don't want to delete them and have to re-install and deal with all the .cfg file mods I always do (repaints, flight tuning tweaks, panel mods, A2A lights etc.)

You could set up folders within FSX for 'Airplanes_single', 'Airplanes_twin', 'Airplanes_bush', 'Airplanes_mil', 'Airplanes_jet', etc etc etc. Then whenever you want to fly a particular type just remove the '_XXX' from the folder name and when you start FSX you will just see that type in the aircraft selection menu. You would of course have to rename the existing 'Airplanes' folder to 'Airplanes_ZZZ' first otherwise Windows will get upset about duplicate folder names!
 
The simpler route than renaming folders might be to set up some folders for the planes you rarely fly, and then add them into your fsx.cfg under the [MAIN] heading, like this:

SimObjectPaths.X=SimObjects\[your folder name]

Just change the "X" to whatever number is next after your existing folder paths. You could comment out this entry by adding "//" in front of it when you don't want to fly that set of aircraft, then uncomment it and reload FSX when you do.
 
For any plane I want to have near at hand, but don't fly often I just rename aircraft.cfg to _aircraft.cfg and then FSX won't load it. Rename again when you want it. You don't have to mess with different folders or editing the data within the files.
 
You could also rename the panel folder. Doing this should still allow the aircraft to be used as AI, but you won't see it under the aircraft selection window.
 
I created a "Hangar" folder in the main FSX install directory and transferred over a/c that I rarely fly. Didn't seem to help speed up loading times,however. Maybe my virtual air force is still too big? :)
 
I created a "Hangar" folder in the main FSX install directory and transferred over a/c that I rarely fly. Didn't seem to help speed up loading times,however. Maybe my virtual air force is still too big? :)
Yep, I did a similar thing, just added a "Hangar" folder under SimObjects and dumped (6.5 gig right now) all the rarely flown aircraft there. It's a simple matter then to just pull them out and back into the airplanes folder when I want to fly them.
Just checked and I have 65 in the hangar folder and 12 in the Airplanes folder, lol.:salute:
 
The simpler route than renaming folders might be to set up some folders for the planes you rarely fly, and then add them into your fsx.cfg under the [MAIN] heading, like this:

SimObjectPaths.X=SimObjects\[your folder name]

Just change the "X" to whatever number is next after your existing folder paths. You could comment out this entry by adding "//" in front of it when you don't want to fly that set of aircraft, then uncomment it and reload FSX when you do.

Can you set the sim objects path to retrieve the hangar from another hard drive, if I wanted to keep the new hangar outside of the FSX folder?
 
I can't see why not.

OK, I guess my next question would be how? I have FSX on the D: drive in my "Flight Simulator" folder. Would it look like this? I'm not on a computer with FSX right now.

SimObjectPaths.X=D:\Flight Simulator\Microsoft Flight Simulator X\SimObjects\[your folder name]
 
I tend to zip up unused aircraft into a "ready to go" package and put it in a storage folder to keep the aircraft list lean and clean.
 
OK, I guess my next question would be how? I have FSX on the D: drive in my "Flight Simulator" folder. Would it look like this? I'm not on a computer with FSX right now.

SimObjectPaths.X=D:\Flight Simulator\Microsoft Flight Simulator X\SimObjects\[your folder name]

Provided you change the "X" to the next number in the list, and the [your folder name] to the actual name of the folder, I think that would work. However, if the folder is within your FSX directory in the SimObjects master folder, you don't need the full path. The FSX path is assumed, so you could just write it as "\SimObjects\[folder name]".
 
Provided you change the "X" to the next number in the list, and the [your folder name] to the actual name of the folder, I think that would work. However, if the folder is within your FSX directory in the SimObjects master folder, you don't need the full path. The FSX path is assumed, so you could just write it as "\SimObjects\[folder name]".

This.


So long as the fsx.cfg is edited to point to the appropriate folder,using the full address, you shouldn't have any issue. Same as addon scenery folders do not need to be in the fsx folder or even on the same hdd.
 
Hmmmm, seems like there is a need for a small utility that manages the entries in the simobjects\aircraft folder.
I've had the same problem and had a look at various tools like aircrafter et al, but they focus on other matters than managing the aircraft fleet.
A hangar management tool would really come handy here.

Cheers,
Mark
 
Hmmmm, seems like there is a need for a small utility that manages the entries in the simobjects\aircraft folder.
I've had the same problem and had a look at various tools like aircrafter et al, but they focus on other matters than managing the aircraft fleet.
A hangar management tool would really come handy here.

Cheers,
Mark

I was just thinking the same thing while reading this thread. Actually, I'm surprised an app like this hasn't been done / marketed.
 
I'm surprised that MS didn't have this featured included from the get go. The option to select/deselect active aircraft folders similar to making addon scenery active in game.
 
Hmmmm, seems like there is a need for a small utility that manages the entries in the simobjects\aircraft folder.
I've had the same problem and had a look at various tools like aircrafter et al, but they focus on other matters than managing the aircraft fleet.
A hangar management tool would really come handy here.

Cheers,
Mark

Excellent idea. In the meantime you could write a simple batch file and stick it on your desktop and could move planes around with one click. Although it would only be efficient to move many models at once.
 
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