Thanks for your kind comments!
I used to do this a lot but got kinda burnt out and dropped out for a couple of years. I've got my site up and running though there's not much there. Its
http://www.airfieldofdreams.comGmax and 3ds MAx are great tools compared to the old ones but learning is pretty hard for this old man!
Your suggestions helped me solve the problem! I really appreciate the help and hope to give back what I can as time goes on.
A couple of things I learned...
Nodes (exterior and interior) really need to have their center of rotation moved to (x,y,z) 0,0,0 co-ords. I recall that in the older BGL files as in FS98 all animations are referenced to this point so it makes sense.
I downloaded Microsoft's Directx 9.0 SDK which includes an X file exporter similiar to the one we know that comes with the Flight Sim SDK. I ran my files through it and it gave me a Matrix scaling error that the other did not. It even gave me the name of the part. After resetting the transform and scale on the offending part, things went back together without a hitch! You can do a search of MIcrosoft's site and find it pretty easily.
Cheers!