Map REL rows

Mapping REL rows

Runway Entrance Lights are a separate map from the stop bars, authored in the same editor.

• The Bar | Lead-On | Rel tabs at the top of the sidebar switch between them.
• A REL row is submitted and reviewed with the rest of your map.
• The Rel tab is open to moderators for now. To apply, reach out on Discord.

Where a row starts and ends

A REL row runs from the holding position, along the taxiway, and onto the runway. The holding position is usually the CAT I one - the outer hold line where an aircraft waits in normal visibility.

Start at the CAT I hold, not the CAT II/III bar

Draw the line at the holding position, usually the CAT I one. That is where the real lights begin.

Route it down the middle. Where the taxiway splits into two on the way to the runway (a Y, or a widened entrance), take the path through the center of the split and straight onto the runway - not down one branch. The server spaces the lights along the line you draw, so the line is the row.

Automatic light placement

You draw the line onto the runway. You do not have to trim it or offset it. On publish the server:

• clips the row at the runway edge automatically,
• lays the lights offset from the taxi centerline (so they never sit on the Follow-the-Greens lights), and
• drops a final light offset onto the runway centerline, so a lined-up crew still sees the row.

Shaping the path

• Trace Scenery Lines - fit the line to the lines the map is drawing: the add-on’s own lines in a paired MSFS session, X-Plane’s paint otherwise. Several fits offer a choice, exactly like the FTG editor.
• Trace sim - the same, from a breadcrumb trace you drove in the sim (see below). The button reads Trace MSFS or Trace X-Plane when paired.
• Add shape points… - click along the line to drop points by hand. Add a bezier handle to a point and drag the arm to bend the curve (the simulator follows that curve).
• Snap - the same magnet as the Lead-On tab, one shared setting. Click to cycle the source it pulls points onto.
• Protects runway - derived from the nearest centerline. Pick one to confirm or correct it.
• Light side - Auto is the approaching pilot’s left, which also keeps the row clear of the Follow-the-Greens centerline lights. Pick Right where that side is already taken.

Tracing in a paired sim

The most accurate way to shape a row in MSFS is to drive the path yourself and fit the line to your track. It is the same trace flow the FTG editor uses.

1. Open the editor from the app in a paired session, so the sim and the browser share a cursor.
2. Press Ctrl+Shift+T to start recording a breadcrumb trace. Press it again to stop. (X-Plane: bind the XPGuard/ftg_trace_toggle command to a key.)
3. Taxi from the CAT I hold, through the split, onto the runway. Then click Trace MSFS to snap the line onto what you drove.

Slew, a joystick, and a small aircraft

• Fly a small, light aircraft (a Cessna-class single). Its reference point sits close to the ground and to the centerline, so the trace lands where the lights should - a widebody’s reference point is meters off.
• Use the sim’s slew mode and steer with a joystick, not the keyboard. Slew glides the aircraft smoothly and precisely along the pavement. Keyboard nudges leave a stair-stepped trace.
• Take it slowly through the split and the runway entrance - that is the part the fit cares about most.

Check it in the sim

• Light lights the selected row in the sim, so you can see how it lands from the cockpit - the clip at the runway edge and the datum light.
• All REL ON / All REL OFF flash every row, so you can walk the airport and confirm the lights land on the pavement.
• Clicking a row also puts the aircraft behind its start node, facing along it.