Can I enter weight directly into the FMS?

[Anxu00 176]

hi all,

 

Instead of relying on the load manager, can I enter the info there directly using the FMS?  For maximum realism I would like to do this but I don't know whether this works or the load manager is doing something else than what is available in the FMS.

 

Thanks in advance.

[kevinh 409]

In the PMDG MD-11 the FMS doesn't load the aircraft with passengers and cargo. The weights you enter in the FMS just tell it how heavy the simulated aircraft is. It doesn't change the actual weight. You must use the load manager to do that.

 

However you can use the FMS to change fuel load.

[Anxu00 176]

Hmm, interesting.  Just for kicks I use the number that I got from the load manager, enter it manually and try to see if the TOCG number calculated by the computer matches the one in the load manager.  To my surprise it matches exactly, so I thought that using the FMS like real pilot does would enter the weight parameter to the sim correctly as well.  I wonder if there is anyone left from PMDG that can answer this question.

[JRBarrett 3,070]

Hmm, interesting. Just for kicks I use the number that I got from the load manager, enter it manually and try to see if the TOCG number calculated by the computer matches the one in the load manager. To my surprise it matches exactly, so I thought that using the FMS like real pilot does would enter the weight parameter to the sim correctly as well. I wonder if there is anyone left from PMDG that can answer this question.

Why would you be surprised? That is how it is supposed to work. If you tell the load manager to load (as an example) 50,000 pounds of passengers and cargo, it will give you the CG that corresponds to that payload.

 

When you program the FMS and tell it that the aircraft has a payload weight of 50,000 pounds (which the load manager already placed into the aircraft when you ran it), then of course, it should give you the same CG that the load manager predicted.

 

What you can NOT do is to use the FMS to actually load the passenger and cargo weight onto the aircraft - only the standalone load manager can do that on the MD-11 (unlike the PMDG 737 and 777).

 

The load manager and FMS calculations of CG for any given payload weight should always be the same, or very close to the same.

[Anxu00 176]

 

 

What you can NOT do is to use the FMS to actually load the passenger and cargo weight onto the aircraft - only the standalone load manager can do that on the MD-11 (unlike the PMDG 737 and 777).

Yeah, so what I did was to load the long ground state, which clear the FMS weight init page, which I then enter values based on my "load sheet" (the info I got from the load manager) and everything works.  However, the reason that it works was that I had saved the info for my next flight, so that even that the FMS data is clear out, when I checked the fuel and weight menu item from FSX, the weight and distribution is there matching the load manager data.  So for my "SOP" that's how I will do it, use the load manager to save data, then do everything else as much as I can with the FMS, more fun in my view.

 

Thanks all.