I've been in contact with Javier (PhotoReal Hawaii) and brought him up to date with what we have found and discovered so far. I invited him to join this thread. I suggested he "pull" the download for the AI Traffic part of George's Hawaiian Airports package as the models are incompatible with V3 and V4.
The "no landing gear" was only an indicator. The problem is old FS9 AI Models that cause P3D V3 and V4 to Crash to Desktop (CTD) ... you'll see a "kernel dll" error with not much explanation. It is repeatable and the "indicator" this is the problem is when you are looking in a certain direction, the CTD happens. It will not happen until your view shifts to the particular direction. And you can repeat this.
The problem is unfortunately based on time. These models are moving around, so it acts like an intermittent. You can be in the same position an hour later, and the CTD won't happen ... that's because the errant AI Model is no longer in that previous direction. So it is tricky to "find" the errant AI model.
Steve has done the "conversion" on the models, but there is still a problem. If you get this CTD, the problem is NOT Hawaii PhotoReal ... just take out the two sets of simobjects that you put in for the Hawaiian Airports ... that eliminates the problem. You can also turn your "traffic" slider to "off" and that stops the problem (but it also stops all AI traffic).
Bottom Line ... there is NOTHING WRONG with Hawaii PhotoReal ... it is one of the most beautiful packages I've ever seen on my sim. For the amount of detail, the frame rates are great, and it "IS" Hawaii ... I've been there, that's what it looks like! For now, if you are going to get this package, install it but DO NOT install the Hawaiian Airport Traffic folders and files.
The scenery for the Hawaiian Airports is excellent ... better then FTX (I've disabled all of those airports). You can turn the FTX airports off for Hawaii by going into ORBX/Global/FTX Airports and changing the .bgl extension to .off. You will want to do that for every file with these ICAO codes:
PHNY - Lanai City
PHHN ... Hana
PHBK - Barking Sands
PHKO - Kona
PHLI - Lihue
PHDH - Dillingham
PHMU - Wiamea_Kohala
JHL - (Lahaina) Kapalua
PHJR - John Roberts
PHMK - Molokai
That will give you the Hawaiian Airports (excellent!), without FTX interfering with them.
But for now, do not install the Air Traffic bgls or the SimObjects bgls that come with the Hawaiian Airports package if you have V3 and V4. (I'm betting FSX will have a problem with the FS9 AI models we saw). We'll work on the problem from here and see if we can solve it.
Doug
PS Right now I'm working on this the "old fashioned way". I am putting in 2 models at a time and positioning at different airports, then doing a 360 sweep with the view. But again, this also depends on "time" and whether or not the errant model is actually "there" when I'm checking for it. Hopefully, I can find the problem model(s). As you can imagine, this is going to take some time. I'll keep this thread posted with updates.