Desperate about this: I want to do some long runs with a Meljet or POSKY 744F. To do the range, I need to load restrict - how can I reduce the ZFW of the aircraft in the sim?

If you're flying in FS9, you can change the payload in the fuel/payload option in the aircraft menu. This works with the default aircraft, and also with a number of addon's. FS9 will even tell you when you've too much payload for the amount of fuel onboard!For aircraft that weren't designed for FS9 it's a bit different. With some it may work, others can cause problems, like crashing the sim. I guess we really need new flightmodels for FS9.You can also directly edit the aircraft.cfg file, look under "station load". This works also for older versions of FS. You have to reload the aircraft in the sim though.

orchestra_nl, Sorry, I should have mentioned that I want to do this in FS2002.Can you give me any hints on what exactly to do in the aircraft.cfg? For instance, let's say I want to reduce the payload by 20 tons, how can I do that without causing iether the plane to be "unbalancedly" loaded (=shift centre of gravity) or cause FS to crash altogether?Thanks for any helpChris

You could look at using ACLoader:http://fsflightdeck.com/"ACLoader: Aircraft Loader & Revenue allows the user to pick an aircraft that he or she will fly, and assign a passenger and cargo load to it, then writes that information to an aircraft.cfg file. The result is an FS2000/FS2002 aircraft that acts differently each flight due to the changing weight and balance from each time the program is run. ACLoader will also display and write a report file with the cost and revenue of a flight using that aircraft, based on flight and other information. An FS200x Flight Plan file, with the Aircraft Data File and Routes Data Record, is used to provide all the information necessary to calculate the profit or loss of each flight, as well as placemment of passengers and baggage/cargo."Alastair

A number of payware aircraft come with a load editor. However, generally you have to edit the aircraft.cfg. With FS2002 comes a seperate program, I believe it is called FSedit. With this you can change the payload. You can do it with notepad by editing the aircraft.cfg too.To keep de plane balanced, simply take a percentage of stations instead of removing all from one station.

Try this resource:Air File Editorshttp://perso.wanadoo.fr/hsors/FS_Soft/fsairfile.htmlAir File Board, post March 2003http://www.avhistory.org/scripts/MegaBBS/logon.aspThere is also a .cfg file tutorial in there somewhere.Ian.