Aircraft selection

[Steve Waite]

I have made some thumbnails which I placed in the texture folders:

http://download.codelegend.com/other/MV-KA350i_thumbnail.zip

Unzip and copy the files to the four folders, one in each corresponding to the tail number:

For example, copy "N70EU_thumbnail.jpg" into:

C:\Program Files\Lockheed Martin\Prepar3D v4\SimObjects\Airplanes\MV_King_Air_350i\Texture.N70EU\

then rename to

"thumbnail.jpg"

by removing the first part of the name including the underscore.

So then IF will display the aircraft thumbnail instead of the question mark that IF shows for missing thumbnails.

[Steve Waite]

The problem is the aircraft.cfg is encoded UTF-8 with BOM.

BOM is incorrect when used with UTF-8 file format. This alters the effect on the first line in the file. The Windows api to read the UTF-8 file (aircraft.cfg) misses out the first line.

So in effect the file has been corrupted. The sim reads the file in sequence. Ideal Flight reads the file as sections and so misses the [fltsim.0] section which it takes the name from.

I'm incorporating a work around for this type of file.

In the meantime you can add a line to the top of the file for the time being. A blank line at the start of the file means IF will read the [fltsim.0] section correctly.

[Steve Waite]

Their cfg might be incompatible with any program that reads [section names] because the '[' can't be decoded. The first section will be missed if it's on the first line. Programs reading the file sequentially might still have issues. Fortunately not many programs read the .cfg anyway. But if they do, look out for lots of weird issues. I would render the file in the same format as the P3D files, and so it seems it is an error only IF can find alongside the missing thumbnail jpgs. These mistakes could be averted testing with Ideal Flight.

[Steve Waite]

...One reliable way to handle this is save the file in the P3D format or add a blank line at the top in Notepad as I suggested.

Either add the empty line at the top or make a new text file and copy paste the content into it.

Incidentally, this is why the mock up worked ok here, The file content was copied from the forum page into a blank text file.

I doubt that impacts the aircraft at all. I'm not sure IF should do anything to be honest.

But with not changing the file there may be any kind of problem in the future with any number of addons or the simulator itself.

[Steve Waite]

Rather than IF do anything I have remarked on the problems found so far on the MilVIz forums. they are one of the better aircraft developers. So I don't see much to worry about.

IF has a few work arounds under the hood to handle inconsistencies in some planes and scenery, but it won't change the data or format of another product.

[Steve Waite]

For the A2A and others only appearing in the AI list. A while back last year during the upgrades, a mistake in the way IF Pro recognises the uses of an aircraft, meant that some aircraft did not show up in the selection. That's been cured a while back so make sure to install; Update the latest build.

If you have a Preview build installed, make sure to look for updates and install those. The latest build and report issues. The version menu item shows Flight 1 version, it does not show preview builds.

[Steve Waite]

To go back to the image missing. I just made an entry into the tips discussion, support section.

At any time we can drop an image onto the IF aircraft image and that is stored with the profile. A popup menu item restores the original image.

[Ener]

Just tested. Working great now.

Thank you very much for your help and for the thumbnails.

Best regards
Rene

[Steve Waite]

Sorry about the problems found. MilVis developer is looking into the problems we found with the 350 and they will fix it up Ok I'm sure.

But for the time being so long as there's a blank line at the start of the file the BOM sequence isn't relevant. If they had a blank line or remark at the top of the file this might have been missed.

The BOM is a hidden character that shows a machine reader that what follows is going to be a type of xml file. However the aircraft.cfg is not an xml file, technically it is a Windows .ini file.

Beware that other problems may become apparent in use, due to the 350i install related to that file format used in other places.

[Jeremey]

I recently purchased the Milviz KA-350i, I just wanted to update that this is yet to be fixed on Milviz's side. Adding a blank line to the top of aircraft.cfg I was allowed to select this aircraft.

Also, a picture of the plane does not show up on the Aircraft Selection page (at least for me it just shows a question mark)