Downloaded FSX aircraft show only the pilot (no model) for Aeronca C3 and Ryan Navion

Missing external model (pilot only) usually means a model/texture/aliasing issue

Hi Perry,

In FSX when you see “just the pilot” (or sometimes just lights/smoke) with no airplane around them, FSX is usually loading the aircraft entry but it can’t load the actual 3D model referenced by that aircraft’s config. The good news is it’s almost always something simple like a missing model folder, a bad model= / texture= line, or an aircraft.cfg that’s pointing to a model that isn’t there.

Step-by-step checks

1) Confirm the aircraft folder is in the right place
For FSX, each add-on aircraft should be in:
...\Microsoft Flight Simulator X\SimObjects\Airplanes\
…and the aircraft folder should contain at least:

• aircraft.cfg
• model (folder)
• panel (folder) (sometimes aliased)
• sound (folder) (sometimes aliased)
• texture (folder)

If you have aircraft.cfg but no model folder at all, the download may be incomplete or you may have missed a “model” subfolder when extracting.

2) Check the model folder contents
Open the aircraft’s model folder and see if there’s a .mdl file in there. It’ll look something like:
*.mdl
If the model folder is empty, or there’s no .mdl anywhere in the model subfolders, FSX has nothing to draw.

3) Verify the aircraft.cfg model= lines match real folders
Open:
...\SimObjects\Airplanes\<AircraftName>\aircraft.cfg
Look at each [fltsim.x] entry and find:
model=
texture=
Typical examples:

• model= (blank) = uses the folder named model
• model=vc = uses folder named model.vc
• texture=blue = uses folder named texture.blue

Make sure whatever is after the equals sign actually exists as a folder. If it says model=navion but there is no model.navion folder, you’ll get exactly the “pilot only” symptom.

4) Texture folder check (less common, but quick to verify)
Even with a valid .mdl, if the texture setup is badly broken you can get odd visuals. Make sure the referenced texture folder exists (same idea as above), and that it contains actual texture files (typically .bmp and/or .dds depending on the model).

5) Re-extract the downloads
If those two aircraft were zipped, double-check you extracted with the folder structure intact. A very common slip is ending up with:
...\Airplanes\AeroncaC3\AeroncaC3\model\...
instead of:
...\Airplanes\AeroncaC3\model\...
FSX won’t “search down” into that extra nested folder.

A couple quick questions so I can narrow it down

• Are you on boxed FSX, FSX:Steam Edition, or FSX Gold/Acceleration?
• For the Aeronca C3 and Ryan Navion folders: do you see a model folder, and does it contain any .mdl files?
• In each aircraft’s aircraft.cfg, what does the model= line show for the repaint you’re trying to load? (You can paste just that [fltsim.x] section here.)

Post those details and we’ll get you sorted quickly.