Thanks for the encouragement, it's helped me through many problems.
I believe I can see a light at the end of the tunnel now.... I'm still not sure that it isn't a freight train coming to chew me up into little pieces, but it is a light..
I've finally found a solution (I think) to my exporting problems with Panda and MakeMDL. I read on another forum that the version of Panda I was using has a bug which has something to do with animations. I downloaded an earlier version of the Panda .X exporter and my model sailed right through MakeMDL but with a few errors. I also checked the model in FS9 but the landing gear doesn't appear to be animated or it's not in the mesh.
This is what I got in MakeMDL if anyone can make anything of it. The text in red is what I'm worried about.
Running model
Start! (C:\3dsmax7\meshes\F-100D-SuperSabre.X)
Loading X C:\3dsmax7\meshes\F-100D-SuperSabre.X...
Processing...
ERROR: Scaling null has a translation, ignoring it
(Part ) Found colinear vertices within triangle
( 0.008697, 0.000387,-0.000080)
(-0.008683, 0.000387,-0.000080)
( 0.000000, 0.000387,-0.000080).
(Part ) Found colocated vertices within triangle
( 0.000560, 0.227834,-1.245811)
( 0.000560, 0.227834,-1.245811)
( 0.044283, 0.227833,-0.564335).
(Part ) Found colinear vertices within triangle
( 0.000560, 0.227834,-1.245811)
( 0.000560, 0.227834,-1.245811)
( 0.044283, 0.227833,-0.564335).
(Part ) Found colocated vertices within triangle
(-0.000506, 2.026031,-2.208277)
( 0.000478, 2.026030,-2.208277)
(-0.024362, 2.026030,-1.757382).
(Part ) Found colocated vertices within triangle
(-0.000506, 2.026031,-2.208277)
(-0.000606, 2.825726,-2.540973)
( 0.000478, 2.026030,-2.208277).
Model units are 1024.00 units/meter
Sorting by Material...
Optimize Parts...
Welding...
Generate BGL...
Assertion failed: file .\xfileprocess.cpp, line 1432 (!m_cScale || m_cScale==2)
Done!
Generate crash tree 1 (1256 bytes)
Assembling: C:\3dsmax7\meshes\F-100D-SuperSabre.azm
Done!
EDIT*******************************************************
I exported only the nose gear and it shows up in FS9 only there is no animation. Stock animations still work but no key framed animation... I read on Netwings that a guy had a similar problem as me, he said he turned on debug mode in MakeMDL which gave him animations in FS9....???? Any clue as to how to go about doing that?