Aft / Forward Fuel Gauge Backward

After getting hit up the bum by a stinger, I notice my KA50 started to wee itself and the F needle on my fuel gauge was going down. I closed my X Feed valve thinking I didn't want fuel from my rear tank crossing to the front and peeing out. I also turned off the front fuel pump (don't ask why).

A few minutes later a low AFT warning comes up but the F needle is almost on empty.

Now I know, I lay in a twisted burning wreckage that my AFT tank was holed and by turning off the Front fuel pump, I was left with nothing. So the gauges are round the wrong way.

I think :-)

Simon.

Backwards Fuel Gauges in BS?

After getting hit up the bum by a stinger, I notice my KA50 started to wee itself and the F needle on my fuel gauge was going down. I closed my X Feed valve thinking I didn't want fuel from my rear tank crossing to the front and peeing out. I also turned off the front fuel pump (don't ask why).

A few minutes later a low AFT warning comes up but the F needle is almost on empty.

Now I know, I lay in a twisted burning wreckage that my AFT tank was holed and by turning off the Front fuel pump, I was left with nothing. So the gauges are round the wrong way.

I think :-)

Simon.

Once the engines are running, the tank pumps do not have to be on (although, as a rule, they should always be on to prevent possible cavitation, but I don't know if cavitation is modeled in the game).

The crossfeed switch is backwards. Switching it down actually opens it. Known bug. In the up position, the crossfeed valve is closed.

But what about the gauges? F and A seem to be reversed.

Nope they are correct. At least, last time I checked they were correct...

Oh no they're not.

Just tested. Left engine should be running off the forward tank. But when you run on the left, the AFT needle goes down. As you get low on fuel EKRAM reports the FORWARD tank low but the AFT needle is down.

Therefore, the needles are back to front. Ta da!

Oh, here's a track for proof.

fuel.zip

Just trying to confirm some facts here.

Fuel flow:

Right external tank >> Forward tank >> Left engine

Left external tank >> Aft tank >> Right engine (+APU)

Forward tank 705 kg

Aft tank 745 kg

This would suggest that it's the AFT tank that has more fuel when full and yet the fuel quantity gauge picture in the manual clearly has the FORWARD tank showing the greater fuel quantity and the AFT tank less.

I believe this is indeed reversed labels for the tank needles. The "П" labeled needle should be reversed with the "з" labeled needle. It was likely a mistake on the part of whoever made the English cockpit textures (not ED) and the English text in the flight manual.

EDIT: Bonus question! Is it a good idea for CG reasons or otherwise to strive for the fuel quantity needles to perfectly coincide or is the longitudinal balance of the helicopter assuming this fuel state difference? I noticed it's perfectly reliable to open the crossfeed valve which will cause the "tank that generally starts with more fuel (which should be aft) to deplete quicker than the other tank. Leaving it in crossfeed past coincidence causes the fuel needles to move apart the other way.

 

I believe this is indeed reversed labels for the tank needles. The "П" labeled needle should be reversed with the "з" labeled needle. It was likely a mistake on the part of whoever made the English cockpit textures (not ED) and the English text in the flight manual.

Yeah, there's at least one other such error I'm aware of in the English cockpit. The laser mode selector at the front panel (not the one at the left hand side WCS panel) is labelled Standby/Normal in the English cockpit, which doesn't make any sense given the actual functionality of the switch, and is completely different from what's written in the Russian cockpit. Not to take anything away from the effort of the people who made the English cockpit, of course, I'm sure many here would say that it's absolutely instrumental in their ability to enjoy the game. But it does have some issues. Should be very easy to fix with a simple mod, I'd think.

There are a number of other examples. Like the infamous "Fly / Over" switch that controls your INU updating either at own position or at the end of the Shkval pole.

I don't know Russian well enough to understand if the labels are reversed or what. Google says "rear" is "задний" and "forward" is "Предисловие." So that seems to work out, so perhaps ED did make a mistake because the "П" forward needle shows the rear fuel quantity (more) and vice versa.

I am not sure, but I think I may have found a fix.

goto

Scripts\Aircrafts\Ka-50\Cockpit\mainpanel_init.lua

then change

-- Fuel tanks

ForwardTankAmount = CreateGauge()

ForwardTankAmount.arg_number = 137

ForwardTankAmount.input = {0.0, 1.0}

ForwardTankAmount.output = {0.0, 1.0}

ForwardTankAmount.controller = controllers.ForwardTankAmount

RearTankAmount = CreateGauge()

RearTankAmount.arg_number = 138

RearTankAmount.input = {0.0, 1.0}

RearTankAmount.output = {0.0, 1.0}

RearTankAmount.controller = controllers.RearTankAmount

lamp_ForwardTankTest = CreateGauge()

lamp_ForwardTankTest.arg_number = 139

lamp_ForwardTankTest.input = {0.0, 1.0}

lamp_ForwardTankTest.output = {0.0, 1.0}

lamp_ForwardTankTest.controller = controllers.lamp_ForwardTankTest

lamp_RearTankTest = CreateGauge()

lamp_RearTankTest.arg_number = 140

lamp_RearTankTest.input = {0.0, 1.0}

lamp_RearTankTest.output = {0.0, 1.0}

lamp_RearTankTest.controller = controllers.lamp_RearTankTest

to

-- Fuel tanks

RearTankAmount = CreateGauge()

RearTankAmount.arg_number = 137

RearTankAmount.input = {0.0, 1.0}

RearTankAmount.output = {0.0, 1.0}

RearTankAmount.controller = controllers.RearTankAmount

ForwardTankAmount = CreateGauge()

ForwardTankAmount.arg_number = 138

ForwardTankAmount.input = {0.0, 1.0}

ForwardTankAmount.output = {0.0, 1.0}

ForwardTankAmount.controller = controllers.ForwardTankAmount

lamp_ForwardTankTest = CreateGauge()

lamp_ForwardTankTest.arg_number = 139

lamp_ForwardTankTest.input = {0.0, 1.0}

lamp_ForwardTankTest.output = {0.0, 1.0}

lamp_ForwardTankTest.controller = controllers.lamp_ForwardTankTest

lamp_RearTankTest = CreateGauge()

lamp_RearTankTest.arg_number = 140

lamp_RearTankTest.input = {0.0, 1.0}

lamp_RearTankTest.output = {0.0, 1.0}

lamp_RearTankTest.controller = controllers.lamp_RearTankTest

All works perfect, its been used for a while now by various people and there are 0 problems associated with it, basically just switch the red numbers about so that the forward tank is numbered 138 and the rear tank is numbered 137 and the tanks/guages will be correct ingame.

I hope this helps, also its my first ever fix for any of the lockons/dcs sims, so I did get a raging boner when I found a solution :joystick:

Just to add, I did more than just swapping the numbers about, I also swapped the paragraphs about so that the rear tank/137 is now above the forward tank/ 138 instead of being below it, purely because of the positioning of the numbers, I simply wanted 137 to be above 138 :music_whistling:

have Phun.

Excellent. Good to know BP can't get their problems sorted but peeps on here are on the ball! Off to test the fix.:thumbup:

Bumfire's Fixed it for me

OK, I ran the same test (on the trk file I provided) and Bumfire's suggestion does work. The needle now correspond correctly to their respective fuel tanks.

This is s "proper" bug and the solution should be stickied. Whilst it may seem minor, it cause me to crash as I tried to isolate the wrong tank when it leaked.

Anyhow, problem solved and many thanks to all you chopper heads out there :-)

It's just embarrassing to be staring at an unreliable gauge for ages and thinking everything's fine. Something like having a car for a couple years and only then finding out it has cruise control.

So it would seem that the fuel/engine pairing was working properly before. The correct engine was drawing from the correct tank, only the wrong needle was changing so it seemed. backward.

Yeah. Just the needles as EKRAN always reported the correct empty tank.

Blah, you think I would notice that too! I'm bliiiiind.

Thanks to bumfire!

It's surprising these little bugs weren't fixed in the patch.