Can anyone help me with installing planes into CFS3/ I've looked for a good tutorial on it but haven't found one.

Ok yes I know that works with certain files but what about just repaint files? What if I want to create a  repaint in the aircraft directory? How do I get it to work? I tried adding a new folder then copying and pasting and then adding the repaint files into it like in CFS2 but they don't come up. CFS3 gives alarms that these plane are already taken. How does one get around this?

Making standalones:

Create shared files by renaming only the textures you change. Textures used by all your repaints of the same model can be put in the shared folder. It is wise to put them in a separate folder in the shared folder, so you can install/delete the shared files.

Hex edit the m3d files, (change the texturenames in the m3d file) but view the m3d files first with your hexeditor, so you will learn what textures are used by what m3d file (and you learn what file you must edit and what file you only need to rename)

You cannot change the length of texurenames!!!!! So if the old texturename has 5 letters, the new one must have 5 as well.

I only do hexediting in the right columm by overwriting characters. Do not type, overwrite. In the m3d files you find the part to edit just at the beginning.

Edit the mosfile with a hexeditor: change the texturename right on top of the file. If you have a damagetexture inbetween your textures, than you will have to hexedit that texturereference as well. Just look for it in the mosfile.

If you want your plane without the stock color/letter/nosart, you can change that in the mosfile as well: They are cold lettertag etc etc. If you find those words in the mosfile overwrite those words by pressing your spacebar.

Make sure you have the m3d name and xdp file name correct in the aircraft.cfg file.

Off course do not forget to include your new textures!!!!


Things work ok with the old fashioned based folder structure in the aircraft folder (like in CFS and CFS 2 with a folder for the model, panel, sound and textures) You will have a better overview......

Do not use the same name for different textures, you will end up having conflicts.

Always delete the bdp file after editing your xdp file!!!!

Do not damage your computer to much after the 101st loaderror, be gentle and learn from what went wrong. Making standalones is a matter of learning and you learn more about failure etc etc.

It took me a certain period and my work is still not bug free.

Hope this is understandable. I give permission to anyone to workout these short instructions into a suitable tutorial. Tom Stovall has done some pioneerswork on this material, read those files

Good luck

groeten van de Foute Man