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I still have no solution for this issue and hope that someone can help me out.

The panel & aircraft (Microsoft Office) icons you mention will be the CFG files you're looking for.

Reply #2 - 02/16/08 at 13:49:24
Re: from migraywolf: I downloaded FS2004 Lockheed C-130J Hercules by Mike Stone.  I use to use it fine with FS2004.  It does have a "panel" folder. In the "panel" folder, I see a file cabinet icon labeled c130j, a "main" bitmap icon, a "panel" icon, a "trb4pmx.gua" file, and a "trb4thr.gua" file.
I do not see a "panel.cfg" file though.

This should mean that the aircraft has its own panel in which case it won't be aliased. If you tell me the file name & the exact page you downloaded it from I'll check it out for you.

I downloaded this aircraft and the F-22 raptor from the
http://www.simviation.com/fs2004military118.htm
and the F-22 from: http://www.simviation.com/fs2004military36.htm

I didn't have this much problem adding aircraft to FS2004.  Is everyone experiencing these issues?

I added both of these aircraft to the correct "airplanes" folder under the "sim objects" folder, but neither will show up.

Thanks for your help!

The basic principle for installing addons to FSX is the same as for previous versions of FS. There are two common problems experienced when installing aircraft.

One is that there is no FSX\Aircraft directory & the aircraft are installed to the FSX\SimObjects\airplanes folder instead.
The other is that some of the FS2004 default aircraft are no longer included. For example; the b737_400 that many 3rd party aircraft are aliased to is now the b737_800. Re-aliasing CFG files to fix this is a simple matter.

I checked out the C-130 from your link. This includes an auto-installer. When you run it I suggest you redirect the install path to a Temp folder anywhere on your PC as long as you know where it is. Then paste the extracted Lockheed_C130J_Hercules folder into your FSX\SimObjects\airplanes directory. It should be listed on the aircraft selection menu under Lockheed. There will be no thumbnail like the default aircraft but this can be fixed later. It has its own panel but two of the gauges are incompatible with FSX.

Not many FS2004 aircraft will be fully compatible with FSX & whether this one displays correctly will depend on which version of FSX you have & the updates you have installed. Not many aircraft posted in the FSX sections are fully compatible with some systems & the latest FSX.

PS. You should find this helpful. http://www.simviation.com/fsxaircraftinstall.htm

I really appreciate the help.  I will try to follow your instructions and hopefully can make it all work.  I don't understand why designers would fail to build their new version of software to be able to include previous applications.  Go figure...  :-/

In the aircraft main folder I have the following: base textures folder, model.clean folder, model.tanks folder, panel folder, sound folder, texture folder, texture.afres folder, aircraft (microsoft office outlook) icon, c130.air AIR file, and the readme file.

One further comment. The file I downloaded (Lockheed_C130J_Hercules.zip from your link) appears to be different from the one you describe. Make sure you're looking at the correct one.