Important tabs in EFB Mass and Balance non-functional in Career - Light Cargo (possibly more)

ISSUE DESCRIPTION

Description of the issue:

When flight planning for a Light Cargo mission in a Cessna 172S G1000, it is not possible to configure the pilot weight, the cargo distribution, or adjust the empty center of gravity due to all of those tabs being deactivated (greyed-out) and inaccessible within Career Mode. They function normally in Free Flight.

FREQUENCY OF ISSUE

How often does this occur for you (Example: Just once, every time on sim load, intermittently)?

Every time.

REPRODUCTION STEPS

Please list clear steps you took in order to help our test team reproduce the same issue:

  1. Load Career mission selection.

  2. Choose a Light Cargo mission, but don’t Accept yet.

  3. Read the mission briefing to get the cargo weight.

  4. Accept the mission. Pay to transfer a C172 G1000 to the airfield.

  5. Select Manage Aircraft, then Fuel and Payload to make note of the fuel on board.

  6. Go back to the mission screen, then open the EFB.

  7. Navigate to the Flight Planner activity, then the Payload & Fuel tab.

  8. Set the Total payload –> Cargo weight equal to the mission briefing data.

  9. In the Fuel Options –> Extra (incl. tankering) field, enter a fuel amount so the EFB’s fuel on board matches what you found in Manage Aircraft.

  10. Click the Configure button at the top of the Fuel & Payload activity within the EFB.

  11. Note how the Seats, Cargo, and Empty tabs are greyed out and inaccessible. You can only interact with items on the Fuel tab.

YOUR SETTINGS

If the issue still occurs with no mods and add-ons, please continue to report your issue. If not, please move this post to the User Support Hub.

What peripherals are you using: not relevant

[PC Only] Are you using Developer Mode or have you made any changes to it? No

[PC Only] What GPU (Graphics Card) do you use? not relevant

[PC Only] What other relevant PC specs can you share? not relevant

MEDIA

In my example, I have a mission from RJBD to RJAF and the mission briefing states cargo weight is 309#. The Manage Aircraft page reports a total Fuel on Board of 200# with my aircraft hangered at RJBD after transferring it.

This is the EFB Flight Planner’s Payload & Fuel tab configured with that data:

This is after I click Configure:

I cannot click the tabs for Seats, Cargo, or Empty.

Why does this matter?

  1. The Ramp Weight in the EFB does not account for the weight of the pilot. I should be able to click on Seats and set a weight because that affects Takeoff and Landing Distance performance.

  2. We should be able to distribute the cargo around the plane to ensure proper weight and balance prior to takeoff. The current build of the C172 Cargo allows (in Free Flight anyway) placing up to 120# of cargo in the Baggage 1 location and an additional 50# in the Baggage 2 location. This violates the POH, which states the total weight of Baggage 1 and Baggage 2 combined cannot exceed 120# but at no point can Baggage 2 exceed 50#. Put another way, if you want 120# of cargo between Baggage 1 and Baggage 2, you have to place only 50# in Baggage 2 and the other 70# in Baggage 1. Heavy loads in the Baggage areas have an outsized effect on %MAC and can render the plane unsafe to fly.

  3. We should be able to adjust the Empty Center of Gravity because the current build of the C172 has the wrong value. In the second screenshot, the %MAC is reported as 16%. This is way off. Using the POH chart, this takeoff configuration looks like this:

The lower right corner shows the calculated Takeoff %MAC, which is 30%, nowhere near 16%.

Even if you severely front load the cargo and recalculate, you can’t get to 16% MAC. The best you can do is 24%:

I’m going to report the issues with the C172 separately in the aircraft bug reporting section, but the main issue here is the lack of functionality of important parts of the EFB within Career Mode. If you load the C172 G1000 Cargo cold & dark at an airfield, you can access all of those EFB tabs and make changes without issue.

I almost asked for this post to be locked because I found once you click “Fly” and get into the cockpit, these tabs become active, but there are still important problems.

I started up a mission where the briefing says the cargo weight is 425#. I did some pre-planning in my spreadsheet to figure out Mass and Balance info and it looks like this:

Well, I get in the plane and go to set up the cargo to match and this is the Mass and Balance tab:

Where did 369# come from?? Where did 56# of cargo vanish off to??

This is the Seats tab, after I’ve clicked on the Pilot seat:

I weigh 0# and there’s no way to edit that. Just bizarre.

Finally, here is the Empty CoG tab:

Thankfully, the slider can be moved so I can set the Cener of Gravity to the real calculated value of 31% MAC, but I have to question if I should. While the briefing said I had 425# of cargo to account for, 260# of fuel, and I want to add my own weight of 170#, when I clicked “Fly” suddenly I have different values. If I change my spreadsheet to match this goofy in-game loading, I get this:

This is so frustrating. Why don’t the values I was given in the briefing match what I get after I click Fly?? Why can’t I add the weight of the pilot? Why can’t I configure all of these values and save them the way I want without being forced to click Fly? What if setting those values correctly before clicking Fly would have given me good reason to reject a mission? I have to go all the way to the ramp before getting a realistic picture of my flight configuration? The only way out of a mission after clickig Fly is to Abort it, and that comes with penalties.

Asobo, please fix it so all parts of the EFB related to setting up a mission properly, especially Mass and Balance in both Flight Planner and Aircraft tabs, are active after clicking Accept Mission and before clicking Fly. Let us set the weight of our pilot and factor that into our pre-flight planning. I’d rather be out a few credits transferring a plane to an airport I don’t end up flying out of than have to Abort a mission altogether because I can’t do a proper pre-flight mission evaluation.

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