Microsoft® Flight Simulator 2002 Readme

Thank you for purchasing Microsoft Flight Simulator 2002. This README file contains information
that was not included in the Handbooks or onscreen Help for Flight Simulator 2002. These notes,
instructions, and tips will help you get the most out of Flight Simulator.

Important: This product is for entertainment purposes only and shall not be used for training
purposes. It is not part of an approved training program under the standards of the FAA or any
other regulatory agency.

Contents:
If you’re having trouble installing the software

Hardware Issues

Graphics Cards

Joysticks

Sound Cards

Printers

Scenery Issues

Simulator Issues

Aircraft systems

Simulation systems

Lessons

Multiplayer

Miscellaneous

Enhancing System Performance

The ATC System

Imported and Third Party Software

Third Party DLLs

Importing Aircraft with gmax

Clarifications to Help and Handbooks

If you’re having trouble installing the software
If you are having problems installing Flight Simulator 2002, use the following methods in the order
in which they are presented.
1. Before installing software, make sure to close all open software applications including
antivirus software.
1.
2. Inspect the CD-ROM for visible deformation or scratches. If the disk is damaged, contact
Microsoft Sales to obtain a replacement CD-ROM. The phone number for the sales office in
your area can be found at [Link]/worldwide.

NOTE: If the CD-ROM was provided with your computer, contact your computer
manufacturer to obtain a replacement CD-ROM.
3. Clean the CD-ROM. To do this, use a CD-ROM cleaning kit, or gently wipe the silver side
of the CD-ROM with a soft, lint-free cotton cloth. Do not use paper cloth, which can scratch
the plastic and leave streaks. When you clean the CD-ROM, wipe from the center of the disc
outward. Do not use a circular motion. If the issue continues to occur, clean the CD-ROM with
a damp cloth or a commercial CD-cleaning solution. Dry the CD-ROM thoroughly before you
insert it into the CD-ROM drive.
4. If the issue still occurs, adjust system settings for your CD or DVD drive. For instance,
reduce CD Caching, disable DMA, or turn off Auto-Inset notification. More information on how
to do this is available in the Microsoft KnowledgeBase article “Q218617 How to Troubleshoot
CD-ROM Read Errors” which is available online at this location
[Link]
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Hardware Issues
Graphics Cards
The following graphics display cards might cause problems with Flight Simulator 2002. Updating
your drivers from the card manufacturer might help some of the problems.

ATI ([Link]

 ATI Radeon, retail drivers, Windows 98SE: Using higher screen resolutions,
flights may launch to a black screen. Installing the latest drivers will fix the problem.

 ATI Rage Fury Maxx, retail drivers, Windows 98SE: Pressing the ALT key to
display drop-down menus does not always work. Installing the latest drivers will fix the
problem.

 ATI Xpert 2000 Pro, latest drivers, Windows 98SE: Using higher screen
resolutions may cause texture corruption.

 ATI Rage Fury Pro, all drivers, all operating systems: Textures may become
corrupted with lines appearing on the screen.

 ATI Xpert98, retail and latest drivers, Windows 98SE: The sky textures may
show through the terrain in certain locations.
  ATI Mobility 128 AGP 4X, Hitachi retail drivers, Windows Me: The Japanese
version of Flight Simulator 2002 may reboot or hang the application.

Diamond ([Link]

 Diamond Speedstar: Aircraft skins may display as chrome when viewed up close.

 Diamond Speedstar A90: Shadow textures on some aircraft may become corrupt.

 Diamond Viper II Z200, reference S3 Savage 2000 drivers, Windows 98SE:

Using higher screen resolutions may cause Flight Simulator to hang. Installing the latest
drivers will fix the problem.

 Diamond Stealth III S540, latest drivers, Windows 98: Texture swapping and
corruption may occur on aircraft.

 Diamond Viper II Z-200, retail, latest, and reference drivers, all operating
systems: Auto-generated trees may appear through aircraft.

 Diamond Viper II Z-200, retail, latest, and reference drivers, all operating
systems: Virtual cockpit textures may be corrupted.

3Dfx ([Link]

 Voodoo 3, retail drivers, Windows 98SE: Using higher screen resolutions may
cause aircraft instrument panels to flicker on and off. Also, water detail textures don’t
appear with this card.

Elsa ([Link]

 Elsa Erazor III, retail drivers, Windows 2000: Flight Simulator runs only in
software rendering mode. This will generally cause slower performance.

 Elsa Erazor III Pro, all drivers, Windows 98SE: Black specks may appear on the
terrain when Water Reflections are turned on in the Display Settings dialog box.

 ELSA Gladiac 511, Windows 98: You might see texture corruption. Downloading
the latest drivers from the Elsa Web site will fix the problem.

Matrox ([Link]

 Matrox Marvel G-400, retail and latest drivers, Windows 98SE: Turning
Antialiasing on in the Display Settings dialog box may cause texture corruption. Also in
this configuration, there is some visible flickering on the windshield and doors of the
Cessna 182S and the Boeing 777.

Nvidia ([Link]

 Nvidia drivers, Windows 2000: Changing the resolution in the Display Settings
dialog box causes the computer to reboot. If you experience this problem, we strongly
recommend updated drivers from the Nvidia Web site.

 Nvidia drivers, Windows Me: Changing views while flying in the floatplane causes
the computer to lock up.
Joysticks
Saitek Cyborg 3D: Joystick may have a non-responsive spot in the axis that controls aircraft pitch.
Downloading new drivers from Saitek fixes the problem.

Having two joysticks installed on your system may cause stuttering in Flight Simulator. Remove
the unused joystick from the list of joysticks in the Game Controller dialog box in Windows to
solve the problem.

With the Microsoft Sidewinder Force Feedback 2 joystick, once you select the Forces tab in the
Game Controller dialog box in Windows, the forces stop functioning until you exit and restart
Flight Simulator.

Sound Cards
Crystal Sound Fusion: Flight Simulator users may experience performance and sound problems
with this sound card. Lowering the sound quality slider in the Sound Settings dialog box may
solve the problems.

Diamond Monster, Windows 2000: Sounds may become muted.

Printers
Certificates may not print well on the following printers:

 HP LaserJet 4MV

 Lexmark Optra K 1220

 Lexmark J110

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Scenery Issues
Sliding scenery

At high latitudes (greater than 70 degrees north or south), airports and 3D objects appear to slide
over ground textures as you fly or slew. The closer to the north or south pole you are, the greater
the sliding appears to be.

The world on your disk

If you chose Compact installation during installation, and you fly through several geographical
areas in one Flight Simulator session, and you have limited hard drive space, you may notice
slow performance. This is because Flight Simulator is reading the scenery off the CD and storing
it in a temporary cache on your hard drive. This is not a problem if you fly in only one area, but
with longer flights spanning several scenery areas, system performance may be affected.
Water counts as terrain
If Water Effects are turned on and you don't see shimmering water, then you do not have Terrain
Detail Textures turned on. To turn on terrain detail textures go to the Options menu, click
Settings, then click Display. Select the Terrain Detail Textures box then click OK.
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Simulator Issues
Aircraft systems
When tuning radios with imported aircraft from Flight Simulator 2000, changing the standby
frequency actually changes the active frequency. This happens when an imported aircraft aliases
a radio from FS2002. This is because there is a standby flag that is set in the FS2002 version of
the [Link] file that did not exist in Flight Simulator 2000. Third party developers of aircraft
can set this flag.

There is no autothrottle arming switch in the Learjet 45 like there is in Boeing aircraft. The
autothrottles are automatically armed in the Learjet. Disengaging the autopilot in the Lear does
not disengage Airspeed Hold. The pilot can disengage airspeed hold by pressing CTRL+R or
clicking the IAS autopilot button on the panel.

When the Altimeter is failed from the System Failures dialog box, the Vertical Speed Indicator
fails, too.

With high realism settings, the electrical power in heavy aircraft sometimes drains quickly. To turn
off the Master Electrical Switch so the battery will not run out, press SHIFT+M.

In the Boeing 747-400, the control to set the COURSE is on the upper right corner of the Nav
Display. The Course indicator works with the APR, LOC, BC, and NAV hold modes. Click the CRS
on the Nav display to change it. The key command for changing course select is V. Then use the
= or - keys to increment or decrement.
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Simulation systems
When selecting engines in a multi-engine aircraft, you must press 1, 2, 3, or 4 after pressing E. If
you just press E and then the – or = keys to select the engine, it won’t work.

The GPS map display doesn’t reset when the flight is reset. You can force the GPS to refresh by
turning it off and then on again.

If you increase the simulation rate, computer-generated AI aircraft are disabled above 4x.

If you use the Slew feature, when you disengage it your aircraft will be at cruise speed. Be careful
that you don’t slew to a low altitude at which cruise speeds would cause your aircraft to crash.

To turn off the zoom number display in the Virtual Cockpit, enter a line in the [Main] section of the
[Link] file that reads 'HideInfoText=1'. Be aware, though that this will turn off other
information display text also, including pause, slew, and framerate information.
If you press SHIFT+Z for surface wind direction, understand that this is true wind, not magnetic.
Magnetic surface winds are displayed in the Weather dialog box.

If you fly the “1983 Kilauea Eruption” flight, you don’t see the volcano immediately. Kilauea is out
of visible range from the airport, and off to the west at 294 degrees. Fly there so you don’t miss
the eruption!

In the Radios tab of the System Failures dialog box, there are check boxes without labels. The
one underneath COM is for COM 2, and the one underneath NAV is for NAV 2.

Lessons
Lessons briefings for the Flight Simulator 2002 Commercial and ATP lessons refer to the Flight
Simulator 2000 Pilot's Handbook. You can find the equivalent information referenced in these
briefings in the Flight Simulator 2002 Handbooks, which are found by clicking Library/Help on the
main screen.

In the Lessons, turning autopilot off and then on again causes the aircraft to bank to the left.

The briefing for the Instruments Checkride says that you need the SEA VOR 16 L/R chart. That’s
the wrong chart. The briefing should refer to SEA VOR 34 L/R.

All of the flight briefings refer to the fs2002\charts directory. If you have chosen Compact Install,
however, the charts for Lessons and Flights will not be installed on your hard disk. Open
[Link] on Flight Simulator 2002 Disc 1 to access the charts.

In the Flights and Lessons, the sectional charts have been optimized for printing with small
margins. You may have to adjust your printer's margins using the "Page Setup" dialog box to get
these charts to print correctly. Also, some charts should be printed in landscape mode. See your
printer's documentation for more information about margins.

In the introductory flight, onscreen text says you can press Z turn off autopilot. The flight won’t
actually let you do that, though, as autopilot is crucial to this flight.

Private Lesson 5: After canceling Flight Following, and after selecting 'Request Full Stop Landing'
at KPAE, press Ctrl+] after acknowledging pattern entry instructions.

Instrument Check Ride Lesson: You should break out above minimums after your ILS approach
at KBFI. You are cleared to land. Do not go below the glideslope.

Multiplayer
You should have a high-speed connection if you're hosting a large Internet Multiplayer session.
Conversely, if you connect to the Internet using a modem, you will need to keep your sessions
relatively small.

When you are in an MSN Gaming Zone game (host or client) you can disconnect from the
Multiplayer session and reconnect to another host/session via a direct IP connection, but not a
Zone connection.

The Zone lobby can accommodate 16 players. The default Max Player setting for Flight Simulator
on the Zone, however, is 8 players, and you cannot change the Max Player setting while in Flight
Simulator in the Zone. Therefore, the Zone uses the hosts Max Player setting from the previously
hosted game. If you are attempting to host a game with up to 16 players and some players are
getting the error message "The selected session is full of players, would you like to join as an
observer?", here is a solution:
1. The host can create (host) a LAN game or Direct IP game and set the player limit
to a number between 1 and 16.
2. The host must exit that session.
3. The host should launch a Zone session.

The Zone game will use the previous Max Player setting.

Miscellaneous
ASOS and AWOS frequencies appear in FS2002 facilities as AWOS. Broadcasts refer to these
facilities generically as Automated Weather Observation.

Professional Edition only: If you delete the icon on the desktop (and Start Menu) for Flight
Instructor, it may not be clear how to get it back, since it is not pointing to a separate executable
file, but rather to a switch that uses the main Flight Simulator executable. The new shortcut you
make should point to a path like this example: "C:\Program Files\Microsoft
Games\FS2002\[Link] /INSTRUCTOR” If you installed Flight Simulator 2002 in a different
folder, adjust the pathname accordingly.

In the Select Aircraft dialog box, if you switch from full screen mode to windowed mode and then
back again, the graphics will overlap. To fix this, press ALT+Enter twice.

Enhancing system performance

Selecting DMA on IDE hard drives could give you more consistent performance. To set this, open
the Control Panel in Windows, then open the System icon. Click the Hardware tab (if your
operating system has one) and click the Device Manager. Expand Disk Drives to look at your
hard drives. Right-click the drive and choose Properties. If you have an IDE hard drive, the DMA
settings will be under the Properties of the hard drive.

The ATC system

Visibilities are not given in fractional amounts by the ATC system. If the visibility is set to 1 ¾, for
example, ATIS and AWOS will report it as 2 miles.

With the Autotune feature, the transponder squawk codes are autotuned upon issuance of IFR
clearances. If you cancel IFR, you should manually tune back to 1200 if you want to use that
transponder code. Similarly, you should manually squawk 1200 when you cancel flight following.

After takeoff from a CTAF or uncontrolled airport, at about 200 feet, the ATC menu switches to the
“VFR en route” state. If you want to do a Touch and Go, you have to reselect the airport and
announce landing intentions. Upon landing, the Announce Take-off menu appears.

The ATC menu is disabled in Instant Replay and Flight Video. This is deliberate.

Clicking OK from Map view cancels your IFR (in other words, it resets ATC, IFR, and the current
Flight Analysis data) if you have made changes in Map view. If no changes are made in the Map
view, there is no problem. However, if you do make a change in Map view, the program will
cancel IFR when you click OK.
You have to assign yourself a flight number if you want to hear a flight number as your callsign. To
assign a flight number when you are creating a flight, click Select Aircraft, and then click the
Change button next to ATC Name. Then type the number into the Flight number box. If no flight
number is used, then ATC calls aircraft by tail number.

ATC doesn't always detect taxi routes as seen in the scenery, so if you select Progressive Taxiing
you may be routed in a direction that doesn't seem to make the most sense.

If ATC is using the runway with the ILS, you get an ILS approach. Otherwise, if ATC is using the
other runway, you get a visual approach.

Sometimes a controller and a computer-generated aircraft’s pilot have the same voice. When this
happens, it may sound like one big instruction from the controller because the readback is
virtually the same as the initial instruction. This is necessary because of the limited number of
different voices.

When ATC text is off and no pilot voice is selected, you may experience brief periods of silence.

Sometimes, your aircraft is told to hold short even if it is already on the runway, if a computer-
generated aircraft has requested takeoff.

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Imported and Third Party Software

Audio panels are a new feature in Flight Simulator 2002 aircraft. Older (imported) aircraft will not
have audio panels.

We have eased the requirements for imported aircraft to just the .mdl and the .air files, but that
may allow for some aircraft to be imported with other components missing, such as gauges, panel
backgrounds, sound files, and textures.

Aircraft imported from Flight Simulator 2000 sometimes have external strobe/beacon lights that
flash too slowly. One way to fix this is to copy the lights section of a Flight Simulator 2002 .CFG
file to the imported aircraft.

Third party DLLs

If you are using imported aircraft or software add-ons that have not yet been tested by the author
of the add-on for compatibility with Flight Simulator 2002, you may get an error message asking
whether or not you would like to load a third party add-on.

If you click the Yes button, Flight Simulator loads the listed add-on. Clicking No turns it off, but
only for a single session of Flight Simulator. If you select not to load the add-on, other
components of the add-on (such as gauges) will no longer work. There are two ways to avoid
seeing this error message every time you start a new session.

The best way to solve this is to contact the developer of the add-on (not Microsoft). The
developer should post a revised DLL that will not cause this message to appear. This will also
assure you that the developer has tested his add-on with Flight Simulator 2002.

If a revised DLL is not available from the add-on’s developer, you can permanently turn the DLL
on or off:
 1. Open the [Link] in a text editor, such as Notepad.
2. Create a new section within the [Link] file called [OLDMODULES].
3. In this section, type the name of each DLL in question, an equal (=) symbol, and either a
1 or a 0. If you set the value to 1, the DLL will run. If you set the value to 0, the DLL will not
run.

For example, if your add-on was called [Link], and you wanted it to load, the section in
[Link] would look like the following example.

[OLDMODULES]

[Link]=1

Importing Aircraft with gmax

gmax is a free software package published by Discreet Software, Inc., and shipped with the
Professional Edition of Flight Simulator 2002. This software enables you to create new aircraft for
use in Flight Simulator.

A folder called gmax is included in your Flight Simulator 2002 Professional Edition installation. To
install the software, run the setup file in your gmax folder. Click the Windows Start button and
click Run. Then type the following, or a variation of it according to the actual path of your
installation:

C:\Program Files\Microsoft Games\FS2002\gmax\gmax_setup.exe

Also in the folder containing the gmax installation is a folder called Help Install. This contains two
self-extracting files, one for the gmax Help system, and one for gmax tutorials. When run, each
self-extracting EXE will prompt you for the location of your gmax installation. After you have run
these two files, you will have access to a plethora of information about how to use gmax to create
aircraft in general.

To make gmax work with Flight Simulator, you must take these additional steps:
1. After installing gmax, open this folder within your Flight Simulator 2002
installation:
C:\Program Files\Microsoft Games\FS2002\gmax\Flightsim
2. Copy the directories and files found there into the folder where you installed
gmax (the default location is C:\gmax).
3. You will receive an alert telling you that the file or folder already exists, and
asking whether you want to overwrite the existing files. Select Yes and the files will be
placed in to the gmax installation location. This will allow you to convert gmax files for use
in Flight Simulator.

Additional instructions for making a BGL in gmax

When making a BGL in gmax, you must input a valid latitude and longitude for placement of your
object. The accepted format for this is:

N40* 32.42' 23.0 E45* 32.23' 20.0

The first part (N40* 32.42' 23.0) is the latitude.

The second part (E45* 32.23' 20.0) is the longitude.
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Clarifications to Help and Handbooks

Onscreen Help Errors
Both our Help and aircraft panels imply that the speed hold is associated with the autopilot. In
Flight Simulator 2000, shutting off the autopilot disengaged the airspeed hold. In Flight Simulator
2002, however, many improvements have been made to the autopilot system, including the ability
to hold airspeed separate from autopilot operation. The autothrottle now controls airspeed
regardless of whether the autopilot is on.

The Scenery Effects Help topic mentions the Scenery Effects checkbox. There is no checkbox for
this; the control is a slider.

The Help mentions multiplayer games through direct serial and modem to modem connections.
Flight Simulator 2002 does not support these particular types of multiplayer connections.

Handbook Errors
Rod Machado’s Ground School: Figure 5-1 shows a 5-degree pitch up, rather than an 11-degree pitch up, as
is mentioned in the text.

The printed manual refers to a Real World Training Handbook. That handbook is not included in Flight
Simulator 2002, but will be released at a later date. Watch the Flight Simulator Web site for details.

Printing the Handbooks

The first page of each of the Handbooks in the Library is designed to be very attractive on the
screen, and so is graphically intensive. For users who are trying to conserve ink or toner in their
printers, start printing at the second page instead of the first.

Other ink-saving suggestions include:

 Printing in draft mode.

 Printing in black and white.

 If the printer has an Ink Volume setting in its properties, adjust it to use less ink.

Viewing the Handbooks and the Videos

If you did not install the Adobe Acrobat Reader or the Windows Media Player while running the
setup program, you can still install them. Simply place Flight Simulator 2002 Disc 1 in the CD
drive, double-click My Computer, and right-click the disc. You will have the option to install either
Windows Media Player or Adobe Acrobat Reader.
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