Workflow between PFPX and TOPCAT

[NedH 6]

It would be useful if someone would explain the workflow between TOPCAT and PFPX in particular how they share aircraft profiles. There isn't much of an explanation in the PFPX Manual.

Do you create a plane profile in TOPCAT and then use it in PFPX or the other way?

And I'm not clear on where the PFPX Airplane Editor fits in? Why edit an aircraft in PFPX? Shouldn't all that be contained inside TOPCAT??

[alpha117 51]

Well, now that is a good question; see my other post about Q400 and Topcat!

[mark767 6]

The don't seem to co-ordinate too well at all. You have to manually set up the plan and aircraft weights in PFPX, then dupicate your work in Topcat (make sure pax weights are same as what the addon uses....PMDG used 175lbs while PFPX uses 184 for example). Once you have done and saved this...with same registration, then you can export your data to Topcat once you have completed your flight plan in PFPX. For the life of me I can't figure out why you can't export your previously saved Topcat aircraft to PFPX and visa versa.

[Michael Collins 0]

May I please ask where you got the PMDG PAX weight of 175, I have set this weight in PFPX and Topcat as the defaut pax weight for all types of flights, but can you add the PMDG pax baggage weight as topcat has the standard baggage weight as 24 / 29 / 33lb if you have them.

My best guess is 24lbs

Now if this is correct should I set the same weights ( pax 175lbs Bags 24lbs) for all types of flight within Topcat and PFPX as the PMDG 737 fleet wouldn't know the differance between Domestic, International or intercon flight conducted in FSX

Thanks

[mark767 6]

Someone else actually worked this out over on an Avsim thread. Basically if you take the PAX number and divide into the weight you get 175 (from the NGX FMC). Also, the baggage weight of 24lbs is very light, someone from Alaska airlines was saying that they use 40lbs.

[masneoquil 0]

On the route editor uou have a button labeled send..., then an option to send to TOPCAT. Then, TOPCAT will be populated with the exact weights of PFPX.

You need to have the two aircraft profiles match on both programs

[skysurfer 6]

May I please ask where you got the PMDG PAX weight of 175, I have set this weight in PFPX and Topcat as the defaut pax weight for all types of flights, but can you add the PMDG pax baggage weight as topcat has the standard baggage weight as 24 / 29 / 33lb if you have them.

My best guess is 24lbs

Now if this is correct should I set the same weights ( pax 175lbs Bags 24lbs) for all types of flight within Topcat and PFPX as the PMDG 737 fleet wouldn't know the differance between Domestic, International or intercon flight conducted in FSX

Thanks

I think it is here.

http://forum.avsim.net/topic/391764-topcat-configuration-for-pmdg-738ngx/

[JRBarrett 675]

May I please ask where you got the PMDG PAX weight of 175, I have set this weight in PFPX and Topcat as the defaut pax weight for all types of flights, but can you add the PMDG pax baggage weight as topcat has the standard baggage weight as 24 / 29 / 33lb if you have them.

My best guess is 24lbs

Now if this is correct should I set the same weights ( pax 175lbs Bags 24lbs) for all types of flight within Topcat and PFPX as the PMDG 737 fleet wouldn't know the differance between Domestic, International or intercon flight conducted in FSX

Thanks

I was the one who made that calculation. I loaded the PMDG 737-700 in FSX, went into the aircraft loading menu and set the number of passengers to zero, fuel tanks to empty, and forward and aft cargo holds to empty.

I then noted the aircraft weight displayed in the FMS PERF INIT page, 83,300 pounds - which is the aircraft's empty weight. I then set the number of passengers to the maximum of 146, and wrote down the new aircraft weight (108,850). Subtracting the empty weight from that number gives a payload of 25,550 pounds for 146 passengers. Dividing that number by 146 gives the weight of a single passenger: 175 pounds.

As for baggage, the choice is up to you. The PMDG load menu in the aircraft FMS does NOT automatically add any additional weight for baggage based on the number of passengers. PFPX does. So, if you tell PFPX to use 24 pounds of baggage per passenger, and set up a flight with 100 passengers, it will add 2,400 pounds to the aircraft passenger weight of 17,500, for a total of 19,900. If you set baggage per passenger to 40 pounds, PFPX will set the baggage weight for 100 passengers to 4000 pounds, for a total of 21,500.

In any case, you would need to make note of the baggage weight that PFPX calculates, and load it into the aircraft manually, by placing it in the forward and/or aft cargo holds, using the FMS loading menu. (I usually divide the total baggage weight equally and put half in the forward compartment, and half in the aft.)

[JRBarrett 675]

For the life of me I can't figure out why you can't export your previously saved Topcat aircraft to PFPX and visa versa.

The two programs do two very different things, and their individual aircraft profiles are vastly different in terms of the data they contain. There is no way to export profiles between programs.

There is much more to an aircraft profile than what you see in the profile editor in either PFPX or Topcat. There are some superficial similarities, like entries for aircraft registration number, zero fuel weight, max takeoff weight etc. That is the part you, the user, "see" when you are working with each program's profile editor. The part you don't see (without digging into the stored profiles on disk) are many kilobytes of performance data tables, and those data tables are very, very different between PFPX and Topcat

The part of a PFPX aircraft profile that you can't see or edit within the program, contains many, many pages of data relating (primarily) to the amount of fuel the aircraft consumes at different altitudes, temperatures and power settings, and the speed the aircraft will travel under those same conditions. Using that data, PFPX can calculate time enroute between waypoints, and fuel consumption, among many other things.

A Topcat profile internally contains many, many pages of data relating to the rate that the aircraft will accelerate (on takeoff) or decellerate (on landing) on the runway at different weights, power settings, flap settings and temperatures. Using that data, Topcat can calculate the length of runway needed for takeoff or landing, Takeoff V speeds, landing VREF speeds etc.

Because the internal data structure of a PFPX profile is vastly different than that of a Topcat profile, the two types of profiles can never be interchangeable. The data Topcat needs to do its calculations simply doesn't exist in a PFPX profile, and vice-versa.

It would be like trying to use Photoshop to edit an MP3 sound file.

Of the two types of profiles, the one used by Topcat is probably the more complex.

Each program, PFPX and Topcat, excells in its own area of "specialization". PFPX is a full featured, highly accurate navigation and enroute performance calculator. It was really never intended to be a takeoff and landing performance calculator. Yes, it will do a very simplified type of calculation of takeoff and landing performance, (for those who do not own Topcat), but that is really not what PFPX was intended to be used for.

Likewise, Topcat is a full-featured program for calculating highly accurate aircraft performance specifically during the landing and takeoff phases of a flight. Yes, it will do a very simplified, and marginally accurate, estimation of fuel burn and time enroute, but again, that is not really what Topcat was intended to be used for - those latter calculations are the specialty of PFPX

Each program, PFPX and Topcat, are extremely complex, and each was years in the making. IMHO, it would be a waste of Flightsimsoft's resources to try to combine the two into a single "super" flight planning package that does everything. No point in doing that when each standalone program already exists, and is already a proven and tested product.

Now having said all that, what does need to happen for the PFPX/Topcat combo to really work to full advantage is for there to be many more aircraft profiles - especially on the Topcat side of the house. Ideally, for any profile in PFPX, there should be a matching profile in Topcat.

The problem in achieving that goal will probably be with the Topcat profiles. Though not (yet) well-documented, I believe that creating new aircraft performance data files for PFPX will be well within the abilities of those of us in the end-user community. There was already quite a bit of discussion on that subject on the flightsimsoft forum in past months.

Topcat profiles might only be able to orginate from flightsimsoft itself. I don't know this for sure, but I don't think that the internal structure of those files has been documented. Much of the data relating to landing and takeoff performance for specific aircraft is highly proprietary, and may only be available from aircraft manufacturers.

[mark767 6]

JRBarrett, thanks for the thorough explanation, it makes sense....sort of. I still think it should be relatively easy for the user interface part of the PFPX setup to be able to copy over the basic information to Topcat and visa versa. So you set up a 737-800, Westjet, registration, DOW, max weight, etc. and that information copies over to the other program. The behind the scenes stuff, certainly makes sense that this will not copy over and nor should it. It would also have been very useful for PFPX to read your aircraft.cfg files to set up basic aircraft profiles in the database rather than have users manually do it. It is what it is, but certainly one thing that can and should be done is to add to the documentation a detailed step by setp process that new users should follow to setup new aircraft in both PFPX and Topcat.

[NedH 6]

I disagree with Sergeant. Not withstanding that the two programs do vastly different things and have very different profiles, the data that are common to the two programs could be made equal. If I use a profile from TOPCAT, the DOW, Max PX, MAZ ZFW, etc should be the same.

[JRBarrett 675]

I disagree with Sergeant. Not withstanding that the two programs do vastly different things and have very different profiles, the data that are common to the two programs could be made equal. If I use a profile from TOPCAT, the DOW, Max PX, MAZ ZFW, etc should be the same.

THAT part I agree could be done - copy the user-editable parts that the two profiles have in common, like reg number, ZFW etc.

[mark767 6]

THAT part I agree could be done - copy the user-editable parts that the two profiles have in common, like reg number, ZFW etc.

Yes!. Let's hope it happens.