Those confusing Sim Files

    After reading numerous message threads of many helpful people trying to
    explain something that was supposed to be "easy" to understand I decided to
    write a short tutorial for those of us who are slow learners.

    1. Start up FS4, select 1,E, and select the Cessna Skylane. Hit escape
    2. Select I, aircraft design
    3. Select H, and type in REFDC5 and hit enter
       --If we were designing the flight characteristics of a particular
	 plane we would do it here but lets assume that we have done it and
	 we are ready to save our "rocket" DC5--
    4. Select I, to save our REFDC5 to disk.
    5. Exit FS4 and Start up Aircraft & Adventure Factory.
    6. If you have uncrated the DC10 proceed to step 7, otherwise uncrate it.
    7. Select "File" and change working directory to the DC10 directory.
    8. Select "Go To" and choose the Assembly Line.
    9. Select "File" and click on the DC10.afa file then click "OK".
   10. Click on "Source Sim" to bring up a list of .sim files.
   11. Click on REFDC5.sim and click "OK".
   12. Change name of Job Description to SLOW DC5
   13. Change the Assembly Name to PROPDC5
   14. Change the Designers Name to your own.
       --Make sure you do this. Robby MacKay did a great job on this design
         and he would have heart failure if he saw this plane flying around
         the way its going to when we are done. <Grin>--
   15. Click on "Flyable" to make it happen.
   16. Select "File" and choose SAVE.
   17. Exit out of AAF and Start up FS4.
   18. Select 1 and then E, Aircraft, and look thru the planes until you find
       one named "Slow DC10" and select it and space bar to escape out.
   19. Hit the S key three times to get an outside view of your DC5 and there
       you are with your "props" humming and your cloaking device making you
       look like an AA-DC10. (Just think of it, ATC will now call you "Heavy").

   You have now created:
  
   In your AAF\DC10 directory;

     PROPDC5.afa --This is an assembly file. It can be altered.

   In your FS4 directory;

     REFDC5.sim -- This really has no use now, it can be zipped or deleted.
     PROPDC5_.sim --Driver file for the flight characteristics. Since we did
		    not change anything in step 3 our DC5 flys like a Cessna.
     PROPDC5_  --Graphics file, this file makes your DC5 look like Robby's DC10
   
   If you use a file viewer to look at PROPDC5_.sim you will notice in the top
   line the name "Slow DC10". This is the name that comes up in the FS aircraft
   selection directory. (1, then E when you are active in FS4)

   I used distinctive names when creating and saving the files so that it would
   be easy to trace through each step and see what is created by each step. I
   made the visual jet DC5 using a prop source file so that it would be quite
   obvious how the visual plane relates to whatever "Source.sim" you create.

   I hope this clears up the .sim confusion so we can spend our time trying to
   figure out how to design a plane by reading Mallard Documents!

  					Mike Adamson  73227,223