Tower View

[chopper_nut]

Is there any way of changing the position and elevation of the tower view at airports in FSX?

[toprob]

Airport Design Editor (ADE) can do it. In fact any AFCAD editor can do this.

[chopper_nut]

Ok thanks. Its a pity that you cant just shift it like in FS9.

[chopper_nut]

I cant run ADE because I dont have the SDK and I cant find another freeware one. Any suggestions?

[Adamski]

@chopper_nut ... I found the instructions that I used to create a "spectator view" when I did some aerobatics videos. It *does* work - though it means swapping files around when you've finished. What I did was to slew an aircraft to where I wanted it then read off the LAT/LON co-ordinates from the SHIFT-Z info view. Don't forget to set your height/elevation.


TOWER VIEW
===========================
I move my towers a little and have a fixed camera in my favorite AC config file also.

It's a manual operation but can be fairly quick and simple.
You may place a Fixed Location Camera in the Cameras.cfg (unwieldy-restart FSX to change)
You may place a Fixed Location Camera in a saved flight. (not too bad - edit flight, save and reload flight)
You may place a Fixed Location Camera in an aircraft.cfg; edit to change location a large amount - save and reload AC. Or just move the view to change location a small amount - I make my cameras movable.

If you just want to move the default "Nearest Tower", make it movable in the Cameras.cfg.

my aircraft.cfg Fixed Location camera definition - title with sequential number, of course and replace braces with square brackets for actual use in definition...
--------------
{Cameradefinition.n}
Title = Fixed Location Camera 1
Guid = {835BFC1C-1A03-994A-A176-49318FEB094E}
// this IS a unique guid for this camera
Description = Fixed camera from hotel rooftop at KGWS
Origin = Fixed
InstancedBased = No
SnapPbhAdjust = None
PanPbhAdjust = Swivel
PanPbhReturn = False
Track = Track // or None if you want to look around manually
ShowAxis = No
AllowZoom = Yes
InitialZoom = 2.0
SmoothZoomTime = 0.5
ShowWeather = Yes
XyzAdjust = TRUE
xyzRate=2.5 // adjust to suit preferences (meter/sec)
Transition = No
ShowLensFlare=FALSE
Category = Custom
CycleHidden=Yes
FixedLatitude=N39.51809
FixedLongitude=W107.31719
FixedAltitude=1820 // meters above sea level

Slew to desired camera location; edit camera def' to appropriate lat,lon,alt; save; reload aircraft and view.

-------------------
to make the generic "Nearest Tower" movable, edit Cameras.cfg:

replace:
XyzAdjust = FALSE
with:
XyzAdjust = TRUE
XyzRate = 1.5 // desired rate of movement (meters/sec)

Not quite as simple as FS8/FS9 but far more flexible...
I also use the other method of saving tower controller flights at some airports for use when I would rather watch than fly...
-------
other notes:
Set Metric in general preferences temporarily to read metric altitude directly instead of converting.
Use decimal Lat, Lon in slew mode text info lines to simplify the location values... If you don't already have a line with decimal values defined in the FSX.CFG, make one version into decimal:

example:
[SlewTextInfo.3]
LatitudeDec=1,1
LongitudeDec=1,2
Altitude=1,3

[chopper_nut]

Cheers mate, Ill give it a go.