thanks for the reply Don ... Austin wrote a planemaker appendix on his new manual.pdf that said, "X-Plane uses the OBJ file-format, which can be saved in AC3D. (
www.ac3d.org) There is a plug-in that saves AC3D files in the OBJ format, so you can simply make your objects in AC3D, then save them as X-Plane object files and they will be ready to fly!" Guess I understood it wrong.
I exported a plane from planemaker to some object files and imported them into AC3D so I could modify the fuselage shape. I then exported the new shape into an object file for planemaker with the intent of creating a new aircraft with that fuselage shape. I loaded that new fuselage.obj file into the misc object screen in planemaker, but when I go back to the the main screen showing the aircraft, I don't see the new fuselage, or any additional fuselage on the screen (zoomed in and out in wireframe). Maybe I need to use that 'attach' feature on the right side of the misc objects screen, but there are no options for 'fuselage' on that list, so I'm stumped. I have spent a lot of time at x-plane.org, but the only planemaker file that had was for a previous version of planemaker, and it was very basic. Any help would be appreciated.
Phil