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PFPX is just a plane jane flight planner you can set up any aircraft you want to pretty specific specs (what transponders it has, ETOPS ratings, class configuration etc. Etc.) but most of that is unnecessary.
I literally just add from template 737-800 add the tail number to identify it from the list of aircraft and call it a day, you can go waaaaay more hardcore than that. But I use it pretty much for fuel + route. It has fantastic route generation, fuel is accurate enough with me setting up a super quick profile for the aircraft. It generates super legit looking OFPs that you can print out if you are super cereal. On the case of TOPCAT: You've reached the issue with it.
It's dependant on the developers to make the profiles, and they've practically abandoned it. It was last updated last year.
For the King Air? I've launched the actual program once to register it and I just use the built in functionality in PFPX. I think it's almost all airliners that it covers.
Edit: the list of aircraft it has. Each one has different profiles dependant on addon creator. There are alternatives to TOPCAT, but they are few and far between.
Some cover literally a single aircraft family. There are a few free ones out there too. 9 times out of 10, unless you want to be by the books there's not a whole lot of reason to calculate take off in the first place. I used to just take an educated guess at the derate amount and call it a day. That's before I picked up TOPCAT since it was one of the final addons I bothered buying since it's such a niche thing.
The FARs require you familiarize yourself with all information pertinent to your flight. But if you know the flight conditions are very similar to the previous then you are already familiar with some of it, you just need to check if its changed and by how much.
If you do a X-Country then turn around and return to the origin airport. No payload change, no fuel change, using the same route. The only thing that changes is weather, NOTAMS, and ATC flows. Check them and your good. So its more becoming familiar with the necessary info before every flight, but sometimes that info may not have changed from the previous so you just need to refresh yourself with it You should always check weather and NOTAMs before every flight. Even if you dont plan on leaving the airport and just shooting circuits all day. And look at all the weather info to not just the METAR and TAF.
Pfpx/topcat For Mac
This is one thing the sim cant really teach you, we're kind of spoiled by weather (or lack thereof) in the sim. But IRL Ive seen it go from VFR to LIFR inside of a few minutes with little warning before hand. And NOTAMs can screw you if you don't read them (personal experience on that one). When your learning a new airplane, or are new to the concepts it can take awhile.
When I was a student pilot I would dedicate a solid hour to briefing weather and doing preformance calculations before each flight. But noticed as I progressed through training and repetition, I got alot faster. I'd say it takes me about 10 to 15 mins for all the caculations now. With a real aircraft, the POH will have charts to follow for finding preformance information.
Or you can be fancy and grab an efb like foreflight and after inputting some basic info about your aircraft, the caculations get done for you. If you want some help learning the ropes, shoot me a pm, and I can help steer you in the right direction. Thanks for your reply and your offer to help. I usually fly the A2A GA aircraft and I believe they are modeled to be flown 'by the book' iirc. Although the simulators allow you to basically jump in the cockpit and do a decent flight with default settings I would like to understand and be able to perform the calculations done irl.
I have a basic understanding on how to do some from videos I've seen on Youtube. Perhaps I should just take the manual or a POH and take some time to actually DO the calculations.regardless of how much time it initially takes. And if I get stuck I will definitely send you a pm.thanks!
I exclusively do flights.