Topic: FSX and ADE Together

Airport Design Editor uses SimConnect to link with FSX. . ADE will tell you if it has found SimConnect and this information is displayed in the status bar at the bottom of the main window. You can, of course, design your airport without being connected using techniques like background images but it is often convenient to work with the user aircraft in FSX in Slew Mode. To connect:

Start FSX and when it is running open the airport you want to work with. This is not strictly necessary – you could open any airport. Once FSX is running ADE can easily move the aircraft in FSX to the location you specify in the ADE display. It is usually easiest to work in top down mode so you see a picture in FSX that matches the map view of ADE
Once you are all set in slew mode in FSX you will need to initiate the connection. Use the buttons at top right of the screen to manage your communications with FSX:

	Click the Connect button. If all goes well the connection indicator should turn green after a few moments and the Disconnect and Lock buttons become active. If this does not happen check that FSX is actually running and you are located at an airport.
	We are now connected to FSX. To disconnect simply click the disconnect button. It is a sensible precaution to remember to disconnect before closing FSX. Although ADE is watching for a loss of connection this can sometimes not work and ADE might crash.
	You should now see the aircraft symbol on the display mimicking the location of your user aircraft in FSX. If for some reason you cannot see it there are a couple of things you can do:
	First position your cursor where you would like to see the aircraft. Then right click and select Move Aircraft Here. After a moment you should see the aircraft symbol move on the display. At the same time your user aircraft will be moved in FSX.
	The other way is to lock the ADE display to the user aircraft in FSX. This will center the aircraft symbol in the ADE display and orient it in the direction of your user aircraft. In most cases you would want to be working in lock mode. When the Lock button is depressed the aircraft symbol is always centered and the ADE display will follow your aircraft. The top of the display will always be in the direction the aircraft is facing. When the lock button is not set the user aircraft will move around the map display. It will face in the direction it is looking but you will have to make sure that you pan and zoom to keep it on screen. If you lose it then it is easy to find. Make sure it is not moving in FSX then either use Lock or Move Aircraft Here to get it back. Note that when you set the lock ADE will center the aircraft on the screen. When you unset it the display is centered on the Airport Reference Point. You may need to zoom out to find the aircraft if it is on some other part of the field.
	The aircraft symbol is drawn with a thin line. The line thickness should allow you to place things accurately. The line thickness that you see will remain the same over most of the zoom range you are likely to use. The zoom level in the picture at left is 5,5x

Now you can slew around the sim and use the location of the user aircraft to place things in your airport design.

Flipping Windows

You can start either program first. If you have more than one monitor then you can put FSX on one monitor and ADE on the other. It is recommended that you put FSX in windowed mode when working with ADE. If you don’t have enough monitor space to have both the FSX and ADE windows open side-by-side you can have both windows maximized and press the Alt+Tab key to flip back and forth between them.

Eliminating Pauses

By default FSX will go into pause mode whenever you leave the FSX window. It can be a nuisance un-pausing that window all the time but this can be prevented by changing a Flight Simulator setting. On the FS Settings / General window un-check the setting ‘Pause on task switch’.