Hi all,

 

This might sound like a silly question, and probably to some a simple thing to do.

 

I have just started to use TOPCAT to plan my take off's and landings, trying to bring a little bit more realism into my flight simming. I was setting up my PMDG aircraft in TOPCAT, MD11, Boeing 747, Boeing 737NGX and I noticed that in the MD11 the PMDG house liveries for the passenger and cargo versions have the same registration number on the tail N11PM! In TOPCAT you list aircraft by tail number, so this confuses it somewhat.

 

If I wanted to change the tail number of one of my MD11's to N12PM, is it a simple case of changing the aircraft cfg file to show the change "atc_id=N11PM" changed to "atc_id=N12PM" . Would this also change the actual model to show this change on the screen or would it be just an atc id change.

 

I know this sounds really silly, as it's probably dead simple to do, but just wondering before I make a mess of it!

 

Happy flying,

The number on the aircraft itself will have to be changed by painting it on in photoshop (or similar). Changing it in the cfg file wont effect it visually.

I dont think you even have to go into the .cfg. You can just change it in the aircraft detail section in the aircraft menu.

I dont think you even have to go into the .cfg. You can just change it in the aircraft detail section in the aircraft menu.

 

Nope, as Jay mentioned it above, this must be done in Photoshop, or other advanced photo editor. Changing it in FSX menu will affect only ATC.

Hi guys,

 

Ok thanks for those replies. mmmm I guess it wasn't such a silly question after-all. Yeah I thought maybe changing the registration number either in the cfg file or the splash screen might actually change the number on the aircraft too.

 

Thanks again

 

Happy flying

Ok thanks for those replies. mmmm I guess it wasn't such a silly question after-all. Yeah I thought maybe changing the registration number either in the cfg file or the splash screen might actually change the number on the aircraft too.

If it was a default Flight Simulator aircraft, it would work. Unfortunately not the way it works on more complex add-on aircraft, which is probably a good thing since I've seen registrations in all different places on many different aircraft, so trying to do it the same way as default aircraft would make it impossible to reposition the registration or even have a different size for it.

You don't want to actually set TOPCAT up to control loading or fuel or any of that because the NGX uses custom processes to do this (via the FMC) and using the normal FSX methods (which is what TOPCAT does) won't work. There's no need to assign every individual tail number you have due to this - you really just want to set up a couple profiles that are just calculators really - you can tell it to get the current gross weight from FSX while the NGX is running and that'll give it what it needs. I go over how to set this up in Tutorial #2 in fact...

Hi Ryan,

 

Thanks for the reply, I guess what your saying is get the aircraft gross weight from fsx and use TOPCAT as a stand alone tool to calculate the figures required and then manually transfer the figures into the NGX fmc or indeed any other aircraft.

 

I will try tutorial number 2 and see how I get on. Although I've been flying all of the PMDG aircraft for quite a while I'm only just really trying to take it a step further with more detailed planning.

 

Thanks for the advice.

 

Happy flying.

Tabs, it works well for the MD-11 (except fuel) and the QoS (including fuel) though.