Weather, flight- and fuelplanning.

[muenstr 0]

Hello forum.I've been flying the MD-11 from PMDG alot lately, and the realism is really awesome. Now I wanna take my flying to the next level, and do some more detailed planning.What software should I use, if I'd like to add real world weather with winds aloft to FS2004 and from those data, calculate estimated fuel usage for a given route, so I know how much fuel to load up in my PMDG MD-11? If creating a flightplan for PMDG products isn't supported I don't mind entering the route manually in the FMC.Thanks in advance.

[Hoang 108]

TOPCAT should suit you :(

[claviermichel 0]

Hi,Topcat is not a flight planner as such but a solid and serious help for take off and landing performance calculation a look at their website will show you what I mean: http://www.topcatsim.com/. The word is out that sometime this year the authors of Topcat will release a flight planner software which is said to be reasonably professional. I even read comments saying that there are similitudes with the LIDO software used by several airlines here is the link: http://www.pfpx.com/. In the meantime there are few alternatives. One is FSBuild which "does the job" for the average simulation user (fuel calculation with wind components integration, export to a lot of flightplan formats etc...) webpage here: http://www.fsbuild.com but it lacks professional features. FOC (Flight operation Centre) from Danur is antique but very professional more here: http://www.danur.com/frontpage/index.htm. Warning learning curve is steep. So if I were you I would wait a few months for the flight planner from the Tocat authors.now if you are geographically bound in your flights ie. you mostly fly within Europe or the US there for both continents specific flight planning softwares available which are not that bad. I am not at home right now so I can't give more specifics but I am sure someone will. Just remember for Europe the name is FlightPlanPro.Cheers

[ronzie 21]

I use FSBuild 2.4 beta (just about to be released but avaiable to 2.3 users). It interfaces to Active Sky incarnations (I use AS 6.5) and lists INFOMETAR, WEATHER CENTER, SIM WX in its path options. It uses winds aloft reports for fuel planning and will print a weather influenced navlog for your route interfacing to weather applications as noted. Among several FMC formats PMDG MD11 is listed in export formats. It exports to F9 and FSX .pln formats and XML formats.If your route is entered in Active Sky that will print a route based weather report of surface METARS, TAFS, and Winds Aloft which is handy for FMC inputs.I use the PMDG 737NG in FS9 and just add a bit of discretionary fuel over that shown in the FSB fuel planning section of the navlog. FSB provides two MD11 performance profiles. These can be edited by the user if desired. In this instance you have a choice of PW or CFM engines.