Thanks all for your patience, but almost everything seems to be working now (sighs of relief all round!!) and I have a backup of the FDC folder in case things ever go awry again. Still no idea why the Shift+Escape option disappears from time to time (been OK for the past 2 days), but with a backed up .ini file I can soon correct it..
Just a couple of questions still:
1. It is true that the 'One to Go' callout and the automatic reduction in climb to 1000'/min (nice touch that) works for some a/c and not for others. Why would that be? Is there anything editable in FDC or in the aircraft.cfg file that will make this option available to a/c that don't produce this callout? I have the callout option checked in FDC for all a/c of course.
2. I still sometimes get flaps coming down at approach way before what is indicated in that a/c's Performance file - for instance, on approach earlier I just got flaps going down to 30 degs at 210 KIAS, when the performance file clearly shows that at landing there should only be 5 degs of flaps at that speed, no matter what the weight. Any reason you can think of that FDC is ignoring the performance data? I do slow down gently and not all at once, as you suggested earlier Dave.
Amazing what a difference this programme makes to flying in FS - certainly worth all the time I have spent trying to get it right!
Martin