But we play with scaled down maps thus we scale down fuel to balance it out.
The AH main main maps are made up, and made to no 'scale'. If you have read the thread I already stated where some 512 x 512 scenario maps have been made to near 1 to 1 scale. Go back an read it.
They could easily make 'realistic' maps at 1 to 1 scale if they like. However, they choose to make made-up maps and add lots of bases close together to facilitate game play. The FBM has nothing to do with 'map scale'.
In AH1 when the maps were mostly 256x256 (thats 4 times smaller then 512 x 512) the FBM was at x1.5. It was at 1.5 once the 512s map came online. It was x1.5 the first few months of AH2. The bases have always been 20-25 miles apart. An FBM x2 does nothing to 'address scale'.
Do we REALLY want American and Japanese planes to have a 1x modifier, doubling or more that range? If you think that it'd give people more incentive to fly the lighter birds just remember how much extra loiter time the vulch dweebs will have over what they do now.
In the case of vulching players can take their 'lighter planes' from deeper fields and won't be locked to the front line to be vulched if the FBM were lower.
It was said above that the yak has 29 min at full throttle. Manage it a little and you can go over 35 min. How long do you want to fly?
That question has been answered several times. As Hohun said some want to fly a 'realistic mission profile'.
High FBM means heavier average fuel loads in ALL planes.
It also means they burn that excess fuel twice as fast. Thus during combat most of the excess fuel weight has been burned, or in the case of Ami planes dumped away with their DTs. All the high FBM does is limit overall flight time. It does nothing to change the relationships between aircraft 'fuel weight'.
Flight time is the whole point, not weight or range.
Somehow the second option sounds less realistic than the first to me. But that's just me.
Nothing about the main is 'realistic' or even 'believable'.
Straffo brought up IL2. In Il2 the maps are much smaller then AH. Some much smaller then even the 256 x 256 maps and there is no fuel multiplier and no one thinks twice about it. Every one has the ability to fly their particular aircraft for as long as it could in rl. While lots of Ami folks do the 25% or 50% and DT in Il2 (just liek they do everywhere) the only real difference it makes is that when I fly axis aircraft I almost never take a DT just 100% internal. I fly on a particular server that has a cap of 125 folks. Pro-longed vulching is never an issue due to long flight times. Thats with each side having just 2 or 3 airfields to up from.
