Thanks for the quick replies! I tried loading stock data again into my airport .ad4 file, deleting the unwanted buildings (they appear to be gone), recompiled and ran fsx to check - all the "deleted" buildings were there - basically the stock airport is what I get. I loaded the stock airport, tried deleting items again, looked ok in IDE but after compile, FSX only displayed the stock airport with all buildings. I opened .ad4 files in both cases. ADE always shows what I want but FSX is only seeing the stock airport. I checked to make sure my compiles were going to the FSX addon scenery/scenery and all files had correct date/times showing the compile took place. It is as if there is a secret file of the stock airfield getting loaded each time (I searched for and did not find any rogue airport files). If I load my complete .ad4 file with all my changes to aprons, buildings, objects, etc. ADE shows what I have done and want, but the FSX display has everything I changed AND the stock airport item as well. I read some answers by Jon from several years ago that seem to address exactly what is happening but didn't find anything that worked. I apparently have done some things which prevent deleting, moving or resizing stock items at this airport and can't find a workaround. Loading the stock airport and rebuilding the airport doesn't solve the problem. Is there any way to get back to square one? PS - before the issues began, I added freemeshx terrain and UTXUSA. I have deactivated the programs in FSX scenery libraries to no avail. (am pretty sure they are not the culprit as I have been using them for some time before the problems occurred.) I seem to have inadvertently deleted the micro-exclusions once when loading the stock airport during a trial. I'm at a loss as how to proceed as ADE seems to have saved the deletion of micro-exclusions somewhere that I can't access.