Hi folks
I hope this isn't a stupid question BUT....
I have the PMDG 737, PFPX and TOPCAT.
I have watched many videos about flight planning with these 3 addons
but haven't found any tutorials about weight and balance i.e if you have passengers, baggage and cargo how do you load up the plane (cargo holds) so that you know you are within the C of G? In TOPCAT there is a Weight and Balance calculator but I cannot see how the weight limits are set for the fore and aft cargo holds. Any guidance would be appreciated.
Regards Colin

When you are in PFPX and have released the flight, hit the Send button, then select TOPCAT. Topcat will now open and you can click payload distribution. This will give you fore and aft

 

 

I have watched many videos about flight planning with these 3 addons
but haven't found any tutorials about weight and balance i.e if you have passengers, baggage and cargo how do you load up the plane (cargo holds) so that you know you are within the C of G?

 

PMDG does not require PFPX, TOPCAT or any other add-on product to use the NGX.  TOPCAT will do some useful things but it will not calculate the "moment" (moment defined as weight and distance from CG datum) or do anything related to ensuring CG is within limits.  Please use the PMDG NGX FMS for this purpose.  The FS Actions Fuel and Payload set up screens will load the aircraft and the resulting value for CG% will appear on the takeoff ref speed page.

 

TOPCAT may do payload moments for other products, but not PMDG.  For the same reasons you cannot use the FSX menu to load fuel, you cannot use TOPCAT to load the aircraft.

I think he means how much cargo to put in the forward and aft when you go in to the Payload section. I admit it isn't clear but in PFPX it gives you passengers and cargo, but doesn't state how much cargo to put in foward or aft. You can get this by opening up Topcat though from within PFPX. You need to put it in manually, you can't use the button in Topcat to send it to the NGX, but it gives you the numbers.

 

I would post a paste a screenshot but keeps giving me an error about the file extension

Topcat could and can load the FS9 737 whereby the pax and cargo data could be transferred to the aircraft it cannot however be used to load the NGX.

 

The best option is to simply use the ZFW figure and enter this in the FMS whereupon weights will be distributed, don't worry about pax numbers or cargo load.