Kind of confused

[titanic3]

So what does an aircraft range actually mean? Say a plane have a range of 800 miles, is that plane able to travel 800 miles then back to base. Or does it have only 800 mile range in total (400 miles to point B, then 400 miles back to point A).

[Saxman]

Depends on how range is described.

If they say "Combat Radius," that means there and back again. Fairy range is going to be the total range.

IE, the F4U-1A in game has a fairy range of ~800 miles on internal fuel (1.0 fuel burn) with cruise settings, or a combat radius of ~400 miles.

[Karnak]

Erm, you mean "ferry range" there, Saxman. 

[Rino]

     Well....he is talking about F4Us 

[Krusty]

If you're looking at the E6B, it's nothing other than "time remaining at this fuel consumption" times "current miles per hour" -- a REALLY simplified version of what you have.

Don't trust it always, because if you have alt, naturally you can glide, or reduce throttle while descending, and naturally if you're climbing you're flying slower: once you level yourself off you'll gain a lot of speed and the "range" reading will go way up.



P.S. One sector is 25 miles wide on the AH map. I personally think 30 minute of flight time on full throttle is good (if not more for longer flights) and anything less like 20 minutes full throttle is too little fuel for a good flight (consisting of taking off, climbing out, finding a fight, getting into the fight, fighting, flying out, landing). Also, having extra gas means running WEP a bit more freely (as this usually increases fuel consumption a lot).

[guncrasher]

So what does an aircraft range actually mean? Say a plane have a range of 800 miles, is that plane able to travel 800 miles then back to base. Or does it have only 800 mile range in total (400 miles to point B, then 400 miles back to point A).

I think in ww2 it  meant u go there in a streight line and come back (800 round trip).  but its pretty arbitrary (spelled right?). it more depended on the pilot himself willing to fly on the best setting on ideal conditions.  japanese pilots were known (to me) to actually pride themselves to fly their aircraft way beyond the standard range by running a very lean fuel/oxygen mixture.  I read about that in  Takeo Tanimizu autobiograpy.  pretty cool book if u wanna read about pacific planes.

semp

btw i copied this from wikipedia it looked pretty cool.

The fuel consumption per unit time is:

F = \frac{dW_f}{dt}

Where Wf is the total fuel load. Since dWf = − dW, the fuel weight flow rate is related to the weight of the airplane by:

F = -\frac{dW}{dt}

The rate of change of fuel weight with distance is, therefore:

\frac{dW}{dR}=\frac{\frac{dW}{dt}}{\frac{dR}{dt}}=\frac{F}{V}

where V is the speed.

It follows that the range is obtained from the following definite integral

R= \int_{t_1}^{t_2} V dt = \int_{W_1}^{W_2}-\frac{V}{F}dW=\int_{W_2}^{W_1}\frac{V}{F}dW

the term V/F is called the specific range (=range per unit weight of fuel). The specific range can now be determined as though the airplane is in quasi steady state flight. Here, a difference between jet and propeller driven aircraft has to be noticed.

[boomerlu]

Skuzzy! We want LaTeX implemented in the forums so the math nerds can type equations!

[Simba]

'Maximum range' is usually taken to mean the maximum distance the aircraft can travel in a straight line at optimum cruising speed and altitude. Important to distance/endurance record-breakers like Alex Henshaw but not really relevant to a combat pilot. 

More useful to the fighter or bomber pilot is 'operational range', how many miles he can expect to be able to fly from take-off to landing while allowing for climb-and-dive and combat and a reasonable fuel reserve for emergencies.

Most useful is 'operational radius', how far he can fly on a typical sortie in realistic weather conditions and safely return to base - particularly important when operating from an aircraft carrier, or flogging a bomber to and from the Big City in a strong SW wind.

 

[Chalenge]

'Ferry range' usually implies guns and ammo (and occasionally armor) were removed and drop tanks (where possible) were added.