TOPCAT is an acronym for Take-Off and Landing Performance Calculation Tool. It is a significant new contribution for flight simming, and brings a professional approach to flight planning by bringing into a single application all of the calculations required to plan for safe and repeatable take-offs and landings.

TOPCAT will provide you, the captain, with weather briefings, load sheets, take-off and landing reports in either a paper form or via ACARS to your cockpit printer.

In the real airline world, Dispatch Departments are responsible for the issue of load sheets to captains. This is usually performed immediately after closing the flight to any additional passengers and freight. Load sheets can be either a sheet of paper carried to the flight deck by a loadmaster, or printed on the flight deck printer.

If you are flying for a virtual airline that operates a dispatch operation, then they may chose to be the users of TOPCAT and you will then receive the load sheet directly onto to your flight deck printer via ACARS. See Jeroen Hoppenbrouwers' ACARS system (http://www.hoppie.nl/acars).

If you are flying on your own or your virtual airline does not support a dispatch operation, then you will be the user of TOPCAT on your (virtual) flight deck.