I just picked up this aircraft (mode S) flying over CYYB. I noticed the British Military flag is displayed under the Airline field. Is this due to the new patch and using the Gatwick Aviation Society database? I have done nothing to change my settings as per your hard work.
Registration: XV105
Flight ID: RRR3758
Mode S: 43COA7
Altitude: 37,900'
UTC: 19:05:13
The military icon showed up in the MyFlights data field but in MyLog it is showing the Union Jack.
Paul@cyyb
Paul,
RB has two directories in the Data directory, these are Flags and Logos. The Logos directory has all the Airline logos as BMP files, and where there is not an "airline" as such - military flight - there is a Military logo. Which logo appears in Airline column of the aircraft list depends on the 3 character Flight ID displayed in the Flight ID column. You will notice that if there is no Flight ID showing (it hasn't been set by the aircrew on the Mode S box in the aircraft) then there will be no logo in the Airline column either.
The logos in the Logos directoy include:
RAF.BMP
RFR.BMP
RRR.BMP
NVY.BMP
So when the Flight ID starts wing RAR, RFR, RRR or NVY, then the RAF roundel and will show in the Airline field in the aircraft list. However, if the Mil aircraft does not have a callsign which matches this (and usually they don't) then you will get nothing in the Airline field. Look at civil aircraft without a callsign - nothing in the Airline field.
See what happens when you get an American military REACH (RCH) callsign in the Flight ID. If it is a genuine Military aircraft, it won't have a "tracking" globe in the aircraft list and it won't be displayed on the map. However, you will have the US Flag (Stars and Stripes) showing in the Flag column, and the American Mil logo (Stars and Bars) showing in the Airline column. But there are also cilivian contracted aircraft that use the RCH callsign, and these display in the aircraft list exactly the same as just described, but they WILL be tracked as they are not military aircraft.
Now, the Flag is produced from the Mode S code, but as RB is delivered, the D008.dat file only breaks down the Mode S blocks into the country and not the aircraft. This means that ALL UK aircraft, military and civilian with show the UK flag (the Union "Jack"). Same for US aircraft etc. By breaking down these Mode S code blocks in the D008.dat file, you can be more specific. Most of Brit Mil aircraft have Mode S codes that start 43C, so by altering the dat file to include (the 24 character binary version of the 6 character hex code 43c*** with "-" being wildcards):
RA,RAF,0100001111--------------
any Mode S that starts with 43C will have the new Mil Flag RA.BMP (and possibly the Logo too if the Flight ID starts with RAF/RFR/RRR/NVY) in the Flags column.
Taking this further, you can apply it to indivual aircraft (impractical) or to blocks of codes for groups of aircraft, so the floowing 5 lines will cover the majority of US Mil aircraft:
UF,US Mil 5,101011011111011111001---
UF,US Mil 4,10101101111101111101----
UF,US Mil 3,1010110111110111111-----
UF,US Mil 2,1010110111111-----------
UF,US Mil 1,1010111-----------------
A piece of cake!
Not really, as all this hard work has already been done by the clever guys on the Kinetic Forum and SBS-1 users have had this facility for quite a while although they don't have an Airline Logo column :-)
