I don't want to use the default airline..

[paulj]

Q1. I've been flying the LeonardoSH Maddog MD-80 for about two years, using FS Passengers, and in the Air Canada livery by Todd R. Fleck.
Is it possible to use this airline - Air Canada - in place of Acme or one of the other default FSX airlines?
Q2. Using the MD-80 - FSX is launched from within the Maddog Manager application, where a previously-created flight plan is selected, and fuel/cargo, CofG and pax load is selected and configured: a print-out is also provided. Once one is happy with the setup, one closes the Manager - which triggers the launch of FSX. Does Captain see these load figures? - or does one have to manually load them into Captain? Either way - which set does Captain use as the flight progresses?

Thanks.

[paulj]

I answered my own Q1. Yes I can create Air Canada within the Administrator.

Now on to Q2.......

[Dutch Owen]

Hi Paul,

As for Q2 -- I speak without having ever seen the load manager so take what I say as informed speculation.

FSCaptain does not care what's already loaded in the airplane -- it will clear that load and replace it with it's own numbers of fuel and payload if you use F1=Normal Load, if you use F2=Manual Load it will accept what's already there and wait for you to change it manually (using ALT-A F) to match what it expects.

Either way, FSCaptain is expecting at least its minimum payload and fuel to be loaded. If the numbers you want are higher than FSCaptain's then you can override the dispatcher's objections and proceed with your flight. You should not be penalized for too much payload ever, and you will only be penalized for too much fuel if you land with more fuel onboard than dispatch calculated for the whole flight.

You can disable this fuel penalty too -- see Appendix 4 of the user's guide, the DISABLEEXCESS option.

Hope this helps,
Dutch

[paulj]

Yep! Beautiful! Thanks Dutch. One down, one to go. At the moment the admin screen is a stopper, otherwise it works fine with Win7-32 bit.

[paulj]

Here's a couple of setupscreens for the Maddog, Dutch:

Attachments:

[paulj]

..and here's the other.. (I couldn't figure out how to send two shots...)

Attachments:

[paulj]

..setup..

Attachments:

[Dutch Owen]

Not sure I understand what is stopping you about the admin screen.

Dutch

[paulj]

I get the screenshot that's shown in my other post - "Administrator window problem" in any resolution I set the screen to. The lower - half-inch, pehaps, and the right side are clipped.

[Dutch Owen]

Ah yes I understand. I'll see what I can do to correct that. It's odd but I want to know the answer.

Dutch

[jet1]

To add a little bit to the original Q2, the problem is checking with Maddog's load manager BEFORE you start the sim and choose your assignment in the FCOM.

At that point, you obviously would not know what the assignment and your traffic load is yet, so you can't set any figures there.

I can't remember works in the Maddog, are you able to view it once the sim is loaded and you are in the cockpit? If so, it is possible that the loadsheet will reflect the figures FSCaptain has loaded in real time.

-kyle

[paulj]

I think I can check that, Kyle: not from the flight deck, but there is an ini file that's modified by the Manager at the time of commitment.... whether Captain will also see that, I don't know. I'm at work now, so "tonight" will be eight hours from now. and it's . . M o n d a y . . . . today.
I mostly fly SEA-PDX and back, (1-hr block times) so I can always trim the airports config down to that, with KEUG as the alt. That would force synchronous loading.

It looks to be a great program; I think it will work with the Maddog, and once these little bugs are out of the way it should sell quite well. Thanks for the help thus far.

Regards,

pj

[Dutch Owen]

I'm working towards a general solution here.

In thinking on this, the general problem is that instead of FSCaptain choosing a payload and fuel load, in some cases where there's a load manager of an airplane, we want it simply accept what's already been decided on as the payload and fuel, and skip the dispatch calculations.

You know there's already the option to use F4=Destination from the Dispatch Online page to put in your own destination, no need to edit the airports.cfg file -- if you want to fly KSEA -> KPDX, use F4 to select PDX as your destination.

If there were an option on the aircraft characteristics load maps that said "don't calculate payload/fuel but accept what's already been loaded when FCOM starts" for a given A/C, that would make your life with the Maddog load manager simple wouldn't it? You'd select KPDX, and your payload & fuel would have already been loaded, and off you go!

Thinking out loud,
Dutch

[paulj]

What a good idea! See - great minds think alike!

I used the very popular Flight1/CoolSky Super80 version a while back, and it also has a load manager, so, yes - I think it would be another good additional feature.

[capp]

This would also make live easier with the PMDG load manager, even though autoloading partially works.
Would be nice if it still would have people boarding the aircraft (not modifying the load though), as the boarding is a big part for the overall ambience - at least to me.