I reinstalled my ATFX and it's working great. It's very easy to add aircraft etc. but it doesn't give you the fine control over placement - if you want to set aircraft in specific locations (relative to your own a/c). That said, the aircraft follow you around in a much more realistic manner. If you're just trying to set up a screenshot, that won't matter - so FS Recorder will be fine.
There may be others that know how to do this far better than I, so more info/advice/comments welcome!
Minimal instructions for setting up a formation with FS-Recorder1) Grab and install the latest FSRecorder from
www.fs-recorder.net.
2) Check the FAQs and the Forum (lots of good info there).
This is without changing any default options at all:
3) Select your aircraft (maybe turn off all FS AI if you want decent framerates) and place yourself ready for take off (or wherever).
4) Go to the FSRecorder Menu and select "Record".
5) Leave all top panel options OFF/unticked
6) In the lower left panel (RH one is irrelevant for this) - select all the options/animations you want to record (default is OK).
All your added aircraft in the formation will use this data.
7) Hit OK. You'll be prompted for a filename when you stop recording.
8) Fly your flight, making sure you have plenty of "straight and level" sections for when messing about in outside views when playing back for screenshots etc.
9) STOP the recording and save.
When replaying your recording, you can over-ride what happens to your aircraft (only). Any "cloned" aircraft will use whatever's been recorded initially by your own (flown) aircraft.
10) Go to "Advanced Play" and load the track you just recorded.
11) Select your aircraft then clone it a few times, not forgetting to set one of them with "Set user aircraft".
12) Leave the offset for your own aircraft at zero, then set the offsets for your clones. These are relative to either the first aircraft in the list or your own user aircraft - not sure which. 15ft is good value. Experiment as required. If you want a bit of vertically separation, enter that. It'll look daft when taking off but will be OK in the air.
13) Select your clones in turn, setting different aircraft/models as required. On my version, the legend (ie. the base aircraft) in the top panel doesn't change, but the crop-downs will show what's what when you select them.
14) You can choose to override any of the recorded inputs by UNselecting the various tickboxes. Your aircraft will still follow the recorded track, but you can change the animations (eg. gear, flaps, lights, etc.).
15) Your clones will do what your original recorded aircraft did. UNticking their boxes will stop any of those animations playing back - though the aircraft will still drop gear as required.
16) Leave the three "Rotate with offsets" boxes UNticked. Ticking any of them will make your wingmen stick like glue in that axis.
17) Play your advanced track - and snap away!
FSRecorder is an awesomely flexible utility. You can record/over-record add multiple tracks, you name it ... but this is only to get a quick and easy formation going!
Note: ATFX is very much a "real time" tool - and any inputs to the user aircraft are automatically sent to your wingmen. It's also good for setting up (temporarily) parked aircraft or to put aircraft "in the circuit".
I think that's it!!
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EDIT: Here are some pics of a quick trial. The Mossie formation was [east/west,north/south] - disregarding up/down and using only positive values:
[30,30]
[15,15] [45,15]
[0,0] [30,0] [60,0]
This last one is a preset from IRIS (which you can't control in any way) - selected from the aircraft menu:
Posted: Thu Jul 14, 2011 6:21 pm
well done...... 
but like you say, If only... 