Is there any way to change my aircrafts callsign if I'm sitting on the ground at a gate without going up to the select aircraft menu? I just want to change its callsign but not reload the aircraft.

Yes - you can do it: first - check that you have assigned a hotkey for "Reload Aircraft" in the Settings --> Controls. I think the default is Ctrl-Shft-R (this is what mine is). Pause the sim, open the aircraft.cfg and change the atc_id to whatever you want the new one to be. Save it, Close it, and go back to the sim. Hit the hotkey, and it will now recognize the new id.

Yes - you can do it: first - check that you have assigned a hotkey for "Reload Aircraft" in the Settings --> Controls. I think the default is Ctrl-Shft-R (this is what mine is). Pause the sim, open the aircraft.cfg and change the atc_id to whatever you want the new one to be. Save it, Close it, and go back to the sim. Hit the hotkey, and it will now recognize the new id.

Thanks. But does that change the panel state and anything else? Does it load the aircraft all over again?

I don't know. I had to go through the process of starting the sim, editing the aircraft.cfg, etc.. to find out the answer to your first question. You can do the same thing as me, right? :(

In order to read/load into memory any changes to the aircraft and or panel cfg. There has to be a complete reload of the aircraft. Yes it will change the panel state, flight plan load, etc. but not the fuel load and a few other things. Much depends on the model. You can also use use the save function and reload. It will save some setups and cause a reload of changes made.

Pause and save the flight at whatever state your in. edit the cfg file and reload the saved flight file. Your panel state should be where you left it. You might just have to reload your flightplan for ATC to pick it up.You are talking about stock AC or payware?

I'm trying to not use the menus, pause, or reload the ac. My sim just isn't stable for that. I want to fly various legs on the PMDG 737ngx, and most legs have a new flight number. I just realized now I said callsign but I mean flight number. I want to put in a new flight number when sitting at a gate without reloading my aircraft or pausing fsx.

I'm trying to not use the menus, pause, or reload the ac. My sim just isn't stable for that. I want to fly various legs on the PMDG 737ngx, and most legs have a new flight number. I just realized now I said callsign but I mean flight number. I want to put in a new flight number when sitting at a gate without reloading my aircraft or pausing fsx.

You can do that with Pro Flight Emulator as an ATC program. It reads the AC info from the flightplan. With the stock ATC it reads the ATC flight number from the aircraft.cfg file.