Author Topic: Fuel (Read 518 times)

BaldEagl · « **on:** January 08, 2007, 09:31:08 AM »

I wish when in the hanger you had a chart for fuel burn listing ~ minutes of flight at each throttle/RPM setting (at least those listed in E6B) or at the very least the gallons available as a full internal fuel load for each plane.

Whenever you take a new plane up you never know how much fuel you have or how long you're going to get to fly or if you should load a drop tank.

I know the information is available at various web-sites but I don't want to have to exit the game to find it.

Thankfully I've flown a lot of the planes in the game but I still decide to try a new one every now and then.

Krusty · « **Reply #1 on:** January 08, 2007, 12:32:51 PM »

Take 100%. Spawn on runway. Open clipboard, pull out E6B. Start engine, go full throttle, wait a second and see how long your flight time is. Cut engine. Brake. Exit plane. Adjust fuel and now you know.

BaldEagl · « **Reply #2 on:** January 08, 2007, 12:58:40 PM »

Quote

Originally posted by Krusty
Take 100%. Spawn on runway. Open clipboard, pull out E6B. Start engine, go full throttle, wait a second and see how long your flight time is. Cut engine. Brake. Exit plane. Adjust fuel and now you know.

C'mon Krusty, how tough can it be to have it say 150 gallons full fuel loadout or whatever it is in the hanger.

This is like if they didn't tell you what guns or ammo loads were in each gun or ordinance package. Just let you pick option 1, 2 or 3 and take your chances.

Krusty · « **Reply #3 on:** January 08, 2007, 01:06:44 PM »

Guns and ammo are one thing. Folks realize the guns are xxx effective at yyy range, and so on.

Fuel is subjective. Highly so.

100 gallons on a 109 might give you twice the range as 100 gallons in a la7, and the la7 might fly 3x as longer as the 109 at 30k, simply because its power curve gives it so little power it uses so little fuel.

Gallons/fuel amount doesn't really help as a solid number. You'd STILL have to remember every plane's capabilities.

262 is a gas hog until you get past 15k. At 20k you get nearly twice the range because fuel consumption is half as much (the engines are at their peak efficiency at that alt). The Ta152 can list 50 minutes full throttle until you hit WEP then it says 35 minutes. The GPH jumps horribly when using WEP in that plane. So knowing how many gallons you have is useless without a large, comprehensive, mind-boggling, list of altitudes, GPH consumption, cross-listed with throttle and MAP settings, cross listed with many other factors.

Too much to keep track of. E6B is really a nice and easy way to figure it out. Quite handy, IMO.

BaldEagl · « **Reply #4 on:** January 08, 2007, 03:16:32 PM »

I agree E6B is helpful and I agree with your assesment of the complexities involved in displaying fuel efficiency but there still has to be way to give you some indication in the hanger of how far you'll go on a tank of fuel. Maybe a range from worst case to best case scenario or something.

Anything is better than simply guessing. Even if they were listed as short, medium and long range would be an improvement.

Better would be fuel duration by altitude at normal or military power assuming level flight.

Best would be range and/or duration for "normal" arena useage taken from actual planes in flight in the arenas. I think I remember HiTech saying that's how the current climb and speed charts were done so why not fuel use as well?

Yoshimbo · « **Reply #5 on:** January 08, 2007, 06:33:37 PM »

I'd woudl really like to not be restricted to 25% 50% 75% and 100% i'd like to be able to adjusty between 25% to 100%. 40% would of been perfect a couple of times

Ghosth · « **Reply #6 on:** January 09, 2007, 07:13:32 AM »

Actually the easy way around that is to have fuel dump capacity for those planes that had it.

Krusty · « **Reply #7 on:** January 09, 2007, 11:33:46 AM »

Heh, I used to call for a fuel dump system. Then I just started taking less fuel.

Mind you I like longer sorties, enjoying 30 minutes flight time (or more) when I can.

What I'd like is to be able to pick WHICH tanks are filled in the P47s. Sometimes I don't want 100% internal, but I DO want the aux tank. The main tank is a freaking bullet magnet and will leak 90% of the time it's his. Having that aux for "emergency RTB" purposes would be nice, but you only get aux when you use 100%.

Spikes · « **Reply #8 on:** January 10, 2007, 04:57:12 PM »

id be nice for a fuel burn rate, but just take 100% and droptanks, if you dont need DT's,drop them, just use your FWD fuel tank