Has anyone else found an inconsistancy between "Free Flight" and "Single Combat" modes? I used "Free Flight" to set the sitting/angle points. Once I had the plane sitting like it should -- no upward bounce or a fall -- I tried it in a mission. Quite a bit of bounce to the ounce, especially for the AI.
Checked it in "Free Flight" and it nicely sat there but it wouldn't do so in a mission. I then checked and, thereby, reset it in "Single Combat" mode. Now it sat well, took off well (even as an AI). Tried it again in "Free Flight" but the plane's tail got caught in a fast updraft.
Oh, well, this is Combat Flight Simulator, not Free Flight Simulator.

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That's close to what I wound up doing. I kept the .air file I'd adjusted for Free Flight
mode and readjusted a copy of it for use in CFS1 Single Combat. However, at the moment, I have to use one variant plane for Free Fight and the other for Single Combat; neither the AI planes nor the flyable one sit well on the runway with the .air file that's adjusted for Free Flight. There's not a huge difference in the entries but enough to make the difference. They fly well enough with either file, providing the AI planes don't smash up before you've gotten your flyable plane well on its way.
What I'm indicating here is that the same file I adjusted with the flyable plane in Single Combat is the same one the AI works best with. In Free Flight I'm all by my little (relatively) self, so I'm not referencing it to the AI in that mode, and  with the Single Combat .air file the plane doesn't sit right. 8)

I've looked at your tutorial. Most all 3rd party planes I've always resized to '8' or '9'. However, other than for gunstations, I've rarely changed anything in the .dp (except when first "playing" around with it) but I think it explains my in air collisions from a mile away. Undoubtedly, it should have an effect but it doesn't logically explain why my Combat-mode-adjusted .air file is working well (on my computer, at least) for both player and AI use yet I have to use a different one for Free Flight.
???
I'd thought to make up, as you call it, a drone (AI only) .air when I found that adjusting the player plane in Combat mode worked for both.  8)

I've also been adjusting in Free Flight and wouldn't have  encountered this if I hadn't decided to make an AI version, as well. Although some .air files have adjusted easily with no subsequent problems, I've also had times when a plane worked fine for weeks then went haywire. I've been working with the one version (SPAD 13). Perhaps I should waste some time on another just to check the phenomenon out.
However, I've also noticed that ALL of my runway headings are now off about five degrees. I seem to have computer gremlins or the likes. Maybe it goes with the elfin part of my middle name. 8)

Conclusions or delusions? Obviously, or I wouldn't have mentioned it.
As to the 5 degrees: I'm speaking of the default runways in respect to heading given for the flight to head off down it. Even when I pull the runway headings from a stock mission, the flight is sitting off to the right of the runway; however, the flight is pointed toward the end of the runway so that they usually miss any objects sitting near it. It's also strange that the AI aircraft are landing properly at the end of the mission (e.i. they head straight down the landing strip until ready to taxi off to the side). Of course, I really should have some grass, dirt or mud strips for many of these runways; they hadn't been upgraded until after WW1 (those that existed then).