AERIAL ADVERTISING

In the Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 career mode, one of the challenges that a user can take is to perform aerial advertising flybys. If you wish your aircraft to be used on this kind of activity you will need a preset that has been appropriately set up as part of the Modular SimObject, as explained below.

 

For more information on the various other career activities and how to prepare your aircraft, please see here:

• Career Activities

 

 

Aerial Advertising Constraints

When it comes to setting up planes for the available advertising activities, there are a few requirements that must be fulfilled:

 

• The plane will need to have the navigation_graph_pilot.cfg (as explained here).
• The aircraft will need to have the ApronWithoutCovers.flt file (as explained here).
• The object_class must be "Airplane".
• The operating_status must be either "in_service" or "experimental".
• The plane cannot be flagged as military.
• The plane cannot be flagged as premium.
• The plane ui_max_range must be greater than 1.
• The plane must be a light aircraft with a piston engine_type.
• The plane can have wheels or big wheels, for landing gear.
• The plane cannot have skis or floats for landing gear.
• The plane model must accurately show the hook and pole assembly which will be used to attach the advertising banner, and there must be a "helper" node in the glTF called AD_ROPE_ATTACH. This should be placed at the point on the hook assembly where the rope for the advertising banner would be attached and should be present in all LODs. Note that if you are using the Included Attachments instead of modeling your own hook assembly, this constraint can be ignored as the included attachments will have this node included already.
• The cockpit model will require a winch pole control, and a Banner Release lever.
• The power-to-weight ratio must be over 0.113 (see below for details)

 

The last item listed above - the power-to-weight ratio - is calculated as follows:

• If the Empty Weight == 0, then the power-to-weight ratio is automatically set to 0 as well (to avoid a division by 0 errors in the calculations)
• If the Empty Weight is > 0 then the power-to-weight ratio uses the following calculation:
  $$PowerToWeight = {power \times 0.746 \over EmptyWeight}$$
  Where:
  • \(power\) is the max_rated_hp value multiplied by the engine count.
  • \(0.746\) is used to convert the power from hp into Kilowatt
  • \(EmptyWeight\) is the empty_weight value in kg.

 

Following these constraints will give the aircraft the AAD_Cabin type. See here for more information:

• Note On Cabin Codes

 

 

Using Included SimAttachments

To make things simpler when creating your aircraft, all the components required for aerial advertising are available as Included Attachments for you to use. These are:

 

• Asobo_Banner_Hook

  This is the pole and hook that goes under the aircraft fuselage and that will be used to hook the aerial advert onto the aircraft. This SimObject already contains the AD_ROPE_ATTACH helper node and all the model behaviors required to make it work.
  

 

• Asobo_Lever_BannerRelease

  This is the banner release lever that should be placed in the interior cockpit model of the aircraft. The lever SimObject already contains everything necessary for the release mechanism to work.

 

• Asobo_Winch_Pole

  This is the winch control for the advertising pole hook and is used to pull the advertising banner close to the plane. The winch pole SimObject contains all that is needed to use the winch control.

 

You can find these attachments in The SimObject Editor. When you create your aircraft preset to be able to perform advertising activities you can setup the attached_objects.cfg to reference the attachments listed above by doing the following:

 

• On the page for the attached objects, select the Sim Attachment section, then click on the + to add a new attachment.
  

 

• The next step is to select the Attachment Root, which requires you to click on the ... button to open the SimAttachment Explorer. This new window will show all the SimAttachments you have registered for the package as well as all the pre-made included attachments. In the image below we are adding the Asobo_Banner_Hook attachment:
  

 

• Having selected the attachment root folder, you can then select the file that governs what the attachment does. This is done from the Attachment File parameter and, again, clicking the ... will open an explorer where you can select the model.xml to use:
  

 

• Having selected the SimAttachment, you will need to select whether it should be attached to the interior or exterior model, and then select where it should be attached. You can do this manually using the X/Y/Z coordinates relative to the Datum Reference Point, or by specifying a node or helper in the glTF.

 

• You will need to ensure that the options Always Execute Associated JS and Always Execute Model Behavior are checked.

 

• You should supply an alias for the two interior attachments, the winch pole and banner release lever.