How to flatten annoying hills

Simulating sloping runways is very easy in X-Plane, as they can be automatically "adhered" to the ground. But as great as this function is at the respective airports, it can sometimes also cause quite disturbing hills in unwanted places. Here you can read how to remove unwanted and thus disturbing mountains on aprons and runways.

You often read in descriptions and readmes for scenaries that you should deactivate the "Runways follow terrain contours" function in the X-Plane menu to ensure that the scenery is displayed correctly. This function makes it possible for runways to automatically "lay down" on the ground and thus run steeply, the corresponding ground is the same, for example. A European example is the Courchevel Airport in the French Alps. However, this parking function also has the disadvantage that it creates unsightly mountains in unwanted places in a scenery, for example if the background data here is incorrect. But there is a relatively simple remedy here.

Feature not longer global in X-Plane 11

If the developer writes that this function should be deactivated in X-Plane, so that such a mountain does not appear in the additional scenery, this can quickly lead to confusion when using X-Plane 11. The reason is that this menu item no longer exists here. Meanwhile the function is globally activated in X-Plane with the possibility to switch it off manually for individual scenaries. That's what we're gonna do now.

Do I have to use the World Editor?

If unwanted hills occur in an additional scenery, you can theoretically open the corresponding scenery in the World Editor of X-Plane, search for the function and deactivate it. After saving the scenery and restarting X-Plane 11, the hills should have disappeared. However, there are numerous reasons that speak against "fingering around" about the World Editor in a foreign scenery. That's why it's much safer and faster:

  1. Open the scenery directory X-Plane 11 main directory → Custom Scenery → Scenery's parent directory.
  2. Search the directory in the search field for the file apt.dat.
  3. Open the apt.dat file with a normal text editor (for example, Windows Notepad).
  4. Browse the file for 1302 flatten.
    1. If there is a 0, replace it with 1.
    2. If the string does not exist at all, create a new line with the content 1302 flatten 1
  5. Save the file
  6. If the scenery has several folders in the directory Custom Scenery you should search each main directory of the scenery for the file and edit it accordingly
  7. Run X-Plane 11

Have a good flight. Please always make backups. Use at your own risk, we assume no liability for any damage that may occur.

About the Author

Hi, my name is Sacha. I founded Flusiboard in 2011.

Sascha Team
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