Air file to cfg converter tool

Official Microsoft Flight Simulator Wishlist
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Clearly the new MSFS has many new cfg sections, but it would be beneficial to have a converter that would convert an FSX .air into the relevant msfs cfgs so that it’s not the massive manual job it is now. Or it would be useful if Asobo would release a list of the new sections against their .air file tables so that it makes it simple to find the right .air section to transpose.

I’m coming at this from the developer angle with my own work.

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This simple request would enable us third party devs to bring our products more easily into MSFS to make the platform even more popular. Amzed no upvotes, I guess you’re all happy with slow civilian aircraft :smiley:

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You’ve definitely got my support, I’m sure they want to limit support for conversions in the interest of looking forward but a simple tool to improve the backward compatibility we were promised would really help the community in these early days

1 Like
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In the FSX converter msfsLegacyImporter you have an AIR to CFG converter included. See MSFS Legacy Importer at Microsoft Flight Simulator Nexus - Mods and community

Second, even if you have a lot of AIR parameters in MSFS 2020 as CFG parameters, not all parameters are used by MSFS 2020. See SDK Documentation

Retro-Compatibility / Legacy
In previous versions of Microsoft Flight Simulator an aircraft was defined by a single Aircraft Configuration File aircraft.cfg and an optional *.air file containing some flight model parameters. Aircraft configuration files have been upgraded so that all the parameters that were only modifiable by the *.air file can now be set in new specialized configuration files directly (listed in the section above). All tables (alpha and mach tables, engine tables) can now be modified in the flight_model.cfg directly, along with all aerodynamics inputs (lift, drag, moment coefficients from various sources). With this change all *.air files are now obsolete in Microsoft Flight Simulator and new aircraft are configured using the configuration files only. In addition, some legacy parameters have now become obsolete - for example, many parameters of the [AERODYNAMICS] section. Most legacy parameters for engines and contact points remain relevant, however.

I understand your wish, but I think because MSFS 2020 != FSX, the wish does not make a lot of sense. I wish that Asobo deletes the Flight model modern/legacy choice, because legacy flight model makes only problems for me.

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Yep, back in September 2020 I don’t believe that was available, but I have used it since, and it’s okay.

I do agree that the whole compatibility of FSX should’ve been broken and not available, it just confuses things when you’re a developer who was not in the testing program to see that FSX models would be compatible, only to get to point of release and have that almost immediately broken with non functioning virtual cockpits. Was hoping for more FS9 to FSX style compatibility so that stuff actually worked well, but instead it’s a bit of a mess and should’ve been removed completely IMHO.

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Sorry, I wrote my post and THEN saw that your post was stone old.

I think Microsoft had a valid wish with backward compability. At the same time they wanted better flight model. And Asobo/Microsoft did not recognize that you can only have the one OR the other and that the or is an exclusive or.