With regard to the upcoming release, I wondered if TOPCAT support for the NGx is planned in the near future. :( I am sure the provided tools by PMDG will be more than enough to use the aircraft satisfactorily, but TOPCAT is "the icing on the cake" in my opinion and adds to the whole simming experience.

+1 TOPCAT is my favorite non-weather tool for FSX.

It's been mentioned before, but in case you were interested, they are also building a flight planner that looks rather promising. Don't know about their other products.<edit>Never mind... Seems you posted just seconds after me. Good to see it's anticipated release between June and August, but I somehow doubt it'll make it. I sure hope it will though. :(</edit>

For sure, TOPCAT and FSBuild are my favourite programs to calculate my flights with my PMDG MD-11, doing much of the pre-flight stuff, but...--> http://www.pfpx.com/Just check this out. It's done by the developers of TOPCAT.best regards,toby<edit>You're first, Etienne. Thanks.</edit>

I'm also looking forward to buy PFPX. It seems a great and must-have tool for flight planning. Looks like we can also use TOPCAT to export payload data to PFPX for more accurate fuel planning. There's an full (maybe incomplete) list of features which contains some interesting capabilities there and some pictures of the program (which also looks nice visually) on their temporary website.

Woah, I wasn't aware of that! Many thanks for bringing it to my and our attention. :smile:Looks like it is going to be an expensive summer...

Aaah so thats why there hasn't been an update since January. Looks like another tool I'm going to need :)

You all do realize that the TOPCAT performance data for the original NGs was based off of the same RW tables that the new ones would be based off of, right?Unless I'm mistaken, TOPCAT uses RW tables, and calculates based on those. TOPCAT's accuracy is dependent on the developer's accuracy to that data. That being the case, the only real change would be adding a drop down for the NGX cabin layouts, and cosmetic things like that. The perf data should still be the same. Again, assuming I'm correct, you could technically just use the existing 737NGs in TOPCAT right now with the NGX and you'd still be spot on.

You all do realize that the TOPCAT performance data for the original NGs was based off of the same RW tables that the new ones would be based off of, right?Unless I'm mistaken, TOPCAT uses RW tables, and calculates based on those. TOPCAT's accuracy is dependent on the developer's accuracy to that data. That being the case, the only real change would be adding a drop down for the NGX cabin layouts, and cosmetic things like that. The perf data should still be the same. Again, assuming I'm correct, you could technically just use the existing 737NGs in TOPCAT right now with the NGX and you'd still be spot on.

I do realize that, and I am sure that the T/O speeds for instance will be accurately computed even now.I am not so sure about the loading, though - it's a different aircraft after all, which most likely means a different aircraft.cfg with altered aircraft parameters. It probably boils down to a minor modification of the exisiting files.

I love topcat, I wonder if they make a profile for the ngx if it will be able to load the fuel into the aircraft, as far as I know pmdg is the only aircraft that will not take topcats fuel load with the send button.

I love topcat, I wonder if they make a profile for the ngx if it will be able to load the fuel into the aircraft, as far as I know pmdg is the only aircraft that will not take topcats fuel load with the send button.

That is a valid question, will the PMDG NGX allow TOPCAT to load fuel directly as opposed to us having to go the the menu or FMC to load fuel. Another concern, one that I have raised on the TOPCAT forum, is that TOPCAT doesn't have the performance data for the 600 and 900 series. I'm happy they have the most popular variants covered, the 700 and 800, but I feel I'm missing out on the the other two. As a purist, I refuse to fly those variants specificially because TOPCAT doesn't offer performance data for them, and I'd really like to at least try the 600 for Westjet or SAS routes.

Well, with the manuals you could always do the math yourself. I use TOPCAT every time I fly the Level D 767, the Maddog MD80, the PMDG 744, but with the NGX, I plan to figure out how to do some of this math myself, in terms of fuel burn and de rating the thrust, flap settings, autobrake settings. Then let TOPCAT help out when the update comes, which I assume it will at some point.

Just as a heads up I already use TOPCAT with the NGX. The numbers work fine although the current CG and recommended trim is different from each other. But you can still get the CG and Trim out of the NGX itself and just use TOPCAT for the derates and autobrake recommendations.

We'll make sure Christian and co. have everything they need to make profiles for the NGX variants, don't worry guys. I used TOPCAT in the tutorial doc for the takeoff setting, I just set to one of the other NG models in the program and the V speeds and stuff were accurate with what the FMC predicted. TOPCAT uses the official Boeing data I'm pretty sure (as we do), so there's no reason it shouldn't be.

Thanks.