ZENAIROK, so you have 3rd party planes and FS2002 doesn't recognize them ( doesn't call them the right things ). Hehehe, well first lets talk about how ATC in FS2002 can be told how to recognize the vast majority of aircraft... To do this you need to know a little about aircraft.cfg, here is the important info on that as a example of a aircraft.cfg file...
[fltsim.0]
title=Beechcraft B99 TITLE, used by FS2002 AI
ui_manufacturer=Beechcraft Plane Manufacturer as shown to you inside FS2002
ui_type=BE99 Plane name/model as shown to you inside FS2002
sim=B99 DO NOT CHANGE THIS OR THE PLANE WILL NOT SHOW UP ANYMORE
model= DO NOT CHANGE THIS
panel= DO NOT CHANGE THIS
sound= DO NOT CHANGE THIS
texture= DO NOT CHANGE THIS
atc_airline= Airline callsign - SEE BELOW
atc_id= Tail Number ( or alt ATC ID ) - SEE BELOW
atc_flight_number= ATC ID - SEE BELOW
** I have included the full list of airlines FS2002 will be able to SAY, this file resides in your FS2002 main folder and is called airlines.cfg. My suggestion is to save a copy of your original one and then replace it with the one in this package ( I did not create this file, but do not remember where I got it or who did ). Anyway, the easiest way to handle this is to be sure to REMOVE the atc_airline= line from the aircraft.cfg of any aircraft you download BEFORE you look at it inside FS2002 - this prevents someones elses unrecognized/fictional airline from being added to this file.
Once you do this you can set all 3 fields from inside FS2002, or manually - up to you...
[General]
atc_type=BEECH This is the manufacturer name ATC will use to ID your aircraft
atc_model=BE99 This is the aircraft model ATC will use to ID your aircraft
You may have to add these lines, or they may already be there and just not correct...
Unlike atc_airline, atc_id and atc_flight_number these figures do have to be manually editted inside aircraft.cfg... I have included 2 files ( Called ATC Types.txt and ATC Models.txt ) that list all the RECOGNIZED parameters you can use to ID your aircraft, it will NOT say what you type - you have to use parameters it understands. Again I did not create these files, just don't know who did...
THE LOWDOWN ON AIRCRAFT SETUP:
Here is how FS2002 will use this info...
If you give a aircraft a airline and a flight number ( they work together ) that is how ATC will normally ID your aircraft ( exception is when you are told about other traffic you are too close to in a flight, ie 'report them in sight', ATC will use the atc_type and atc_model if found and valid to ID the aircraft even if they do have a airline assigned. If no atc_type is found FS2002 will ID the aircraft as EXPERIMENTAL ). If airline is set to -none- ( flight number should then be set to 0/ZERO ), ATC will use the atc_type and atc_id ( tail number ) to ID your aircraft ( atc_model is only used in the 'report them insight' situation )... Again, atc_airline takes priority over atc_type and will be used if found - what I do is assign airlines to planes with liveries that are listed in the airlines.cfg file and then set the flight number to something that tells me what kind of a plane it is ( like B707 ), in this case I enter the actual shown tail number in as atc_id because it never gets used anyway. If the aircraft is some fictional livery then I set act_airline to none, atc_flight_number to 0 and enter parameters into atc_type, atc_model and atc_id ( usually I will not use the shown tail number then but rather something that tells me what kind of a plane it is - just like the flight number in the above example. What you do is of course up to you :)