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Completely Removing a Stock Airport - Legal?

6maynew

6maynew

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unitedkingdom
Hi everyone

One of the UK's airports has now had a complete overhaul including name and ICAO code change. With this came navaid changes as well. I was wondering if removing the old airport from the stock BGLs and distributing the resulting files is legal or not, as the default ILS, VOR, and NDB are a bit in the way of the new airport. Everything else like the runway etc has been removed by a new AFCAD, but as far as I know stock navaids can't be removed without editing the stock BGLs.

Any answer on this would be appreciated.

Thanks

Will
 
Removing and airport completely would involve modifying a stock bgl file directly. This is not a good idea and while you might do it for your own personal reasons distributing it would certainly be breaking copyright and other license terms.

Also if you needed to modify stock navaid files to remove any unwanted naviads, that would be the same situation as above.

This is not a legal opinion but I certainly would not do it.
 
Legal questions aside, I do not know of any current utility or method to remove VOR/ILS/NDB etc from an FSX bgl. All of the decompilers I know of do not touch that section of the bgl.

The only other method I would know of would be to hex edit the bgl. -- and that would assume I knew the offsets to hack :)

So, what would you use to remove navaids? I hear ADE is going to have some sort of capability in the future to do this? If that is true, then some of us know how this data is stored and where...
 
It is possible to remove navaids. SDE could do it but it should not be done. You should not modify stock bgl files in any way. The next version of ADE extends functionality to include approaches. This includes extended support around navaids and waypoints. Never the less there is no way to really remove navaids in FS other than hacking them out of the relevant bgl file. There are, however, tricks that can be applied to make it appear that they are gone
 
Thanks guys - thought there might be a legal issue with that. Still, I've done it for myself anyway, and all tests came back ok - it was a bit strange to see SMG and SM as navaids when the airport wasn't there, so I wanted to remove them.

Looking forward to the next release of ADE to edit approach data and the like. ADE has been a life saver for my Plymouth project, so I thank you Jon for making it. You also mentioned tricks to make the navaids appear to be removed?
 
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6maynew said:
Thanks guys - thought there might be a legal issue with that. Still, I've done it for myself anyway, and all tests came back ok - it was a bit strange to see SMG and SM as navaids when the airport wasn't there, so I wanted to remove them.

Looking forward to the next release of ADE to edit approach data and the like. ADE has been a life saver for my Plymouth project, so I thank you Jon for making it. You also mentioned tricks to make the navaids appear to be removed?
Click to expand...

Glad that ADE is doing its job. It is possible to move navaids and also change frequencies (I think) so designers have been known to move the ones that they do not want to the North or South poles.
 
Hi Jon thanks for the reply. I've tried both of those and neither are working - I can't edit the VOR or NDB freq in ADE, but I can do the ILS (which also in the end failed as a duplicate). Also moving the navaids within the test radius didn't work (stayed in the same position), as well as moving them miles away.

Of course I might just have done it wrongly.
 
meshman said:
Huh? The nav aids are in the NVXxxxxx.BGL file and it decompiles just like any other BGL file. Or are you talking about excluding and replacing/repositioning a nav aid?
Click to expand...

Not me, 6maynew was. I don't really have a need to mess with stock navaids myself.

So just out of curiosity, how are you decompiling the NVX files? What are you using?
 
Mace said:
Not me, 6maynew was. I don't really have a need to mess with stock navaids myself.

So just out of curiosity, how are you decompiling the NVX files? What are you using?
Click to expand...

ADE does it as needed. SDE Test App and Bgl2Xml decompile NVX files. And I am sure that BglAnalyzeX will do the same.

There is nothing special about them they are just regular BglComp bgl files that contain navigational objects
 
Mace

You can use any number of Utilities to look at the Navaids in the associated bgl's. As long as the bgl is in the FS2004 format of XML the NewBglAnalyze or BglAnalyzeX (FSX) disassembler will work.

SDE also looks at all XML formated type bgl's in both FS2004 and FSX.

These disassemblers are designed for the study of bgl's and not for use as a way to delete XML data from the FS9/FSX stock files.

@6maynew

In FS2004 we could move the Navaids to a different location. FSX has changed all that. In FSX we can only move a ILS or other type navaids a small distance from the ARP.

If a airport gets a new ICAO and moves to a different location it is possible to move all the associated data with the airport move and FSX will honor the move. ADE in newer versions will have the ability to do this.

Presently it requires some manual writing of the XML so FSX will know where to look for the new Naviads once they are moved incluiding the Localizers and all approach code.

Jon

I cross posted
 
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Yes of course I didn't think of moving the whole airport - forgot you could. Thanks!

Yes I used BGLAnalyzeX to decompile the Navaids file. Now looking forward even more to the next ADE!
 
Hi Jim

I moved the airport slightly north into the water with FSXPlanner to test its effect, and while the airport itself moved, the navaids didn't. Is there anything else I would need to do for the navaids to move?

Thanks
 
6maynew said:
Hi Jim

I moved the airport slightly north into the water with FSXPlanner to test its effect, and while the airport itself moved, the navaids didn't. Is there anything else I would need to do for the navaids to move?

Thanks
Click to expand...

You can move navaids. I would not know if FSX Planner can do this en masse or whether you would need to do them one at a time. ADE does not currently allow the en masse move of an airport. This can be quite a tricky operation and you would also need to re-align any approach code that is associated with the airport.
 
To my knowledge, ADE version 137.5 is the only airport design tool that will move all Naviads such as the ILS Localizer/GS/DME, VOR, NDB, marker beacons and Terminal_Waypoints that show on the ADE Grid.

Once these are moved you must check the GPS receiver Approach line draw to be sure it also realigns with the runways. ADE does not move WAYPOINTS (if required) and that must be done manually.
 
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