If you've ever tried designing scenery for FS-2000, you may have had the problem of runways that float, or sink into the ground. This happens because of the way scenery is displayed in FS2000. The terrain is mapped in a much more precise way than in previous versions.

The only way to fix it is to flatten the terrain you intend to work with.

Flatten switches are placed in the scenery.cfg file that is found in the main FS folder.

Start by opening FlightSim and creating a scenery area to contian your new files.

Next use a text editor, such as Notepad, to edit the scenery.cfg.

The Flatten switch will give a single elevation to a four sided area that you specify.

This is what a flatten switch resembles:

X is the number of the flatten you are selecting for the area. The elevation can be anything between -2000 and 99999. You must start with 0, and you can add as many as ten different flattens, numbered 0 through 9.

The co-ordinates are used to identify the four points that will define the flattened area. The must be in order, either clockwise or counter clockwise and must be in the form of degrees and minutes. Here are two examples of how an area might be laid out:

A flattened area can be as large as 90 degrees of longitude and 45 degrees of latitude.

EXAMPLE: This is exactly how one area appears in my scenery.cfg file. It is for a fictional city and airport called Illinoia, which apears about 50 knots south of Chicago.

Flight Sim reads layer 1 as the most basic scenery. Then counts up to the highest number. They appear the opposite of how they do in the FlightSim scenery box. In this case the area is 78. Area and layer mean the same thing.

Next is the title as it appears in the FlightSim scenery box, followed by the path to the files. I set up the files in c:\fsscenery\ic\scenery. Note how the final subfolder is left out, because FS-2000 knows to look for it without being told.

Active chooses whether or not the scenery will be included. The value can be set to TRUE or FALSE. It is the same as checking the box in FlightSim.

Next comes the part which is important. The Flatten.

I have used only one altitude which the whole area is flattened to. The altitude is 675 feet, MSL. The first point is N41 10,W87 50. Note the syntax here, it must be exact, with commas and spaces in the right places or it won't work.

By laying out other points in the same fashion, you can create your flattened area.

© Andy Johnston, 2000