737 Fuel Management Program

Flight planning is a large part of flying the 737, in real life and virtually.

Yes you can fly with the three fuel tanks full, however, bear in mind that you will not be simulating a real flight. Airlines rarely fly an aircraft between two locations with a full fuel load, unless it’s required for operational use or safety.

Fuel is heavy, and the additional weight requires more power and fuel to move between locations. This equates to an increased expense. Airlines usually only carry enough fuel to reach their destination, taxi, and one or two alternate airports.

You can calculate the appropriate load sheets, distances between airports, winds, altitudes to be flown, and alternate airports. But this can be time consuming, and often you don’t want to simulate the paper trail that goes hand in hand with getting a 737 into the air. For those keen on paperwork and simulating everything, I recommend the program TOPCAT - Take-Off and Landing Performance Calculation Tool.

Ross Carlson has created a very handy and functional fuel management tool to use. The program is stand-alone and does not need to be installed into the flight simulator directory or to C://drive/Programs; the software can be installed to and run from any folder including your desktop. Initially designed to work with the Boeing 737NG developed by Precision Manuals Development Group, the utility works well for other 737 aircraft, provided they have the same operating limitations and fuel tank capacities that the software was designed.

The only issue to be wary of is that the aircraft you are flying matches the same weights as those used by PMDG.

Supports 737-600, 737-700, 737-800 and 737-900.
Values can be entered and displayed in pounds or kilograms.
Reads payload (passenger and baggage) weights via FSUIPC.
Calculates en route fuel burn based on cruise altitude and trip distance.
Calculates fuel burn to reach alternate airport.
Calculates increased or reduced fuel consumption due to forecast winds en route.
Allowances for taxi-out fuel burn, holding fuel burn, and minimum landing fuel.
Indicates if any parameters exceed aircraft operating limitations.
Sets actual fuel levels in your aircraft via FSUIPC.
One simple .exe file, no external DLL or data files required.
Loads first 1,000 pounds of fuel into the center tank to keep pumps submerged.
Accredited for use with registered non-registered copies of FSUIPC.

Operation

I've been using this fuel planner or quite sometime and it works quite well. I open a flight and then run the fuel planner and change the variables as required. Then, after I've boarded the fuel I exit the fuel planner program.

The only let down with the program, and this probably is an advanced feature not deemed necessary when the program was developed, is that it doesn't provide %CG which is used in a CDU to determine your takeoff trim.

Search google for PMDG fuel planner and you will find several sites that allow you to download the program. Alternatively, download the software from the file download tab.