First of all, Welcome to the fs comunity

Ok. to open up texture maps for other aircraft, you first need a free program called DXTbmp. If you dont have it, it may be on the utilities page of this webpage, or you can go to any search engine and type DXTBMP and you should be able to dl it for free. What DXTbmp is, is a program used to compress normal bmp's into smaller file sizes.

next, the way you change a texture map is just by painting over the original. For example, if the wing is blue, and you want to turn it red, just open up the texture file using dxtbmp, and send it to adobie photoshop. Then, where ever the wing is on the texture map sheet, you paint red (or what ever color you want to turn it) over it. The final step would then be to save the texture as a bmp, open it up in dxtbmp and save it again as a DXTBMP back into the texture folder.

hope this answers all of your questions 

Thanks for that...I was able to alter an existing texture...but now I want to know what program or how you create the texture file with all the airplane parts in it. I have been reading game modeling using low polygons techniques. It goes over UV mapping and explains that you have to blow out the model but what do you use to do that...
I tried a screen shot- didn't work. Is there a UV mapping program???
Talked to several people- no one seems to know how to get from the model to the flat panels that you can apply textures to.

Any ideas?
wish_bear

I figured out how to change an existing texture

what I am trying to understand is when you open that existing texture file, and you see the wings, wheels, tail etc in the file...how did they create that. I want to know if I create a model- be it a car, plane, building how do you get those to break apart to create the texture files

wish_bear