I want to know why it is that every time I import a flight plan from the SimBrie into the Maddog X Load Manager, I’m always overweight. I know I am not overweight based on the calculations made in SimBrief. It’s not because I have too much fuel, too many passengers, nor too much cargo. I’ve calculated all the numbers and they all add up to being under the maximum take-off weight. The thing I’ve noticed is that the Maddog X load manager has already included the baggage for all the passengers, for example 4,500 lbs of baggage. But the load manager includes the same additional 4,500 lbs in the Cargo section. But when I set the forward and aft cargo sections to zero, everything adds up and I’m not overweight. Why is there a conflict here between SimBrief and the Maddog X load manager? I’m not using MSFS2020. I’m using P3Dv4.
I need to make a correction. Actually, my plane is not overweight. But it shows that the aft cargo, the ZFW CG and the TOW CG are in red. If I remove the 2219 lbs in the forward and aft cargo section, then everything’s fine:
If you add both the 2219 lbs in both the forward and aft cargo, they add up to 4,438 lbs. But notice to the right of that 4,437 lbs of baggage is already included. This is what I’m confused about. Yes, I created the MD-82 Airframe. But when I loaded a new MD-82 Airframe, I noticed that the “baggage weight” was set to 0 and the “passenger weight” is 214 lbs. But in my saved MD-82 Airframe that I created a while back, the “passenger weight” is 185 lbs and the “baggage weight” is 29 lbs per passenger. There’s a difference here. I’m not sure where the 185 lbs and the 29 lbs came from. I thought passenger weight was supposed to be set to whatever passenger weight that is used for the MD-82 and the baggage weight was added, based on the number of passengers onboard. Of course, it says one can change these numbers. But I’m confused about the fact that it’s showing in red and the for the aft cargo and the take-off and the ZFW CG are in red.
I don’t have the MD-82 by Leonardo, but the custom airframe probably has been set up to 214+0 lbs for a reason, so I would probably recommend to use it instead of the one you’re currently using (with 185 + 29 lbs).
As for the CG issue, Simbrief simply generates a passenger count (when set to AUTO) and computes the associated weights. It does not “place” the passengers and cargo as that would be addpn-specific.
From your screenshot, it looks like the payload manager simply puts half the passengers in zone A, the rest in zone B and splits the cargo evenly between forward and aft. In the above case, it seemingly results in a CG that is too far forward (?) to fit in the certified limits for this aircraft. You can manually work around it by moving passengers and cargo around a bit.
There is nothing Simbrief can do about this as:
it has no idea about the CG characteristics and limits of each specific addon
even if it did, the ACARS format used by the Leonardo does not contain such information. Here’s an example of the payload information in this type of file:
**** DO NOT EDIT ****
SUMMARY:
PAX=111
CARGO=0KG
FUEL=10299KG
TAXI=363KG
TRIP=6484KG
ATCCS=ILEOX
FLN=I-LEOX
ETD=282325
ETE=0219
**** DO NOT EDIT ****
So you can specify a passenger count and cargo weight, and that’s it. Passenger and cargo distribution is done by the load manager itself.
You might submit a feature request to Leonardo requesting that, when importing from Simbrief, the load manager automatically arrange the payload to fit within the aircraft’s CG limits.
