We've all done it. There you are, looking at the new files at your favourite flightsim site, and you spot that beautiful bird that you'd love to try out. So you take the time and bandwidth to download it, extract it into your aircraft directory, load up the program and hop into the plane.

"Wow," you say to yourself. "This thing is horrible."

There are a lot of aircraft available these days, ranging from small freeware downloads to multi-megabyte payware offerings. And while the modern design programs can do a lot to help create a plane, a large part of the creation process comes from the designer using a little common sense.

Over the years, I've had so many bad experiences that I've become jaded. I've turned into a very picky downloader, in that something really has to seem different or unique before I'll even bother. I wouldn't be surprised if I'm not alone, and so I'd like to offer some tips for designers, in a hope that we can make the virtual flying experience a little more pleasant for as many people as possible.

The part of most aircraft that suffers most is the panels. Many designers spent a great deal of time meticulously crafting the exterior model of their aircraft, but then seem to rush the panel to get it done. But that can leave the panel looking poor. And the plane can end up being anywhere from not-as-good-as-it-could-be to almost completely unusable.

I understand that these people are putting the aircraft together for free, and I do thank them for that. I don't want to sound like I'm lecturing people, just offering a little constructive criticism.

First, let me tell you about myself, to get an idea where all this is coming from.

I've been using flight simulator since version 5.1 for DOS. When I first started using FS98 I created my first scenery, and still create freeware scenery to this day. Early in the life of FS2004, I started putting together my own aircraft. I've also run a small flightsim site of my own for over five years.

Now I'm not claiming that every plane I've ever put together is a perfect ten. But I try and catch as many things as I can. And these are some of the ones that have jumped out at me, some of them over and over again.

Panel resolution - this is by far the worst offender. Not everyone runs the program at a high resolution. If you built the panel to work at low res, it will almost definitely work at a high resolution. But if you go the other direction, people who prefer the lower resolutions end up with gauges that have numbers on them too tiny to read. I myself prefer to run at a low resolution, with FS2004 at only 800x600. I find that it offers smoother performance, and to many people, that's what it's all about.

Radio and their gauges - this is another one that crops up pretty regularly. Designers will add the ability to set the frequency for something, such as VOR 2 or the ADF, and then not put a gauge for you to see where it's pointing. Or the opposite, VOR 2 will be nicely sitting on the panel, with no way to tune it. Another point on this subject is standby frequencies. Designers will choose to use the default Bendix King gauges that have the standby built into them, but then not enable it in the configuration file. This means the user has to click the standby frequency in order to get the active frequency to change. It looks a little odd, and it comes up over and over again on many planes even though fixing it is a simple matter.

Panel bitmaps - Most panel backgrounds are ones that have been created by hand in a graphics application. To me, there's nothing wrong with this. The panel can be made to look however the designer wants, and can use his or her creativity as much as they want. If you choose to use a photo for the background, there are a few things to take into consideration. First, you have to make the panel work with the gauges. I've seen some panels that were made using photographs were the gauges looked like they were simply floating on top of the panel instead of being part of it. Also, nothing is worse than a crooked photo. Make sure that you edit and crop the photo so that it's straight, and still fills the amount of the screen that it's supposed to.

There's also nothing wrong with using the default gauges. But some of those gauges have no labels on them. If you just put them into the panel as is, the user may not have any idea what each of them is supposed to do. If the panel has switches that don't say what they are (the NAV/GPS selector is a good example) then be sure put a label in the correct position on the background file.

There are a few little other things, some of which very rare, some of which I've only ever seen once. To give an example, a recent download had two tanks for fuel. You had to choose which tank the fuel was being drawn from, like in the default Mooney Bravo. But this panel didn't have a fuel selector, meaning that fuel was always being taken from the same tank, causing it to fly more and more lopsided as the flight progressed.

The users can fix some of these issues, if they know how and are willing to put in the effort. But as long as the designer is working on the plane, they might as well look for the little things as well.

So there are a few little gripes. To everyone out there who keeps our hobby alive with their time and effort, thanks once again. Keep up the work, and I'll see you in the skies!