Fuel tanks

[Winchester]

Is there any way to select which tanks are filled? There is only the slider with a percentage but I'd like to know if you can just fill the front tanks?

I'm assuming by not having fuel in the rear fuselage tanks there will be more longitudinal stability when taxing and take off/landing. For example, in prepar3d with a2a birds you can fuel each tank and I wondered if the same holds true for dcs or is there only a percentage slider?

 

Chris

[bongodriver]

I don't think this Spit has rear tanks.

[Redglyph]

Is there any way to select which tanks are filled? There is only the slider with a percentage but I'd like to know if you can just fill the front tanks?

I'm assuming by not having fuel in the rear fuselage tanks there will be more longitudinal stability when taxing and take off/landing. For example, in prepar3d with a2a birds you can fuel each tank and I wondered if the same holds true for dcs or is there only a percentage slider?

 

Chris

 

Err, there is no rear tank in A2A's Spitfire, is there? :huh:

[Winchester]

Err, there is no rear tank in A2A's Spitfire, is there? :huh:

 

I didn't say there was! :)

 

I said you can fuel different tanks. There is a graphic so you can see exactly where the fuel is in each tank in any aircraft. So in the mustang or b17 or spit or whatever you can see exactly how the CoG will change and can decide where you want your fuel.

My question is can this be done in dcs and also does this mk9 have rear tanks modelled?

Kind of hard to tell from just a percentage bar!

 

Cheers

Chris

[MiloMorai]

I think you will find that the top tank drained into the bottom tank.

[firmek]

I guess the rear tank is not modeled atm. The manual also mentions that due to severe stability issues the rear tank was only installed on some of the versions (clipped wing?) and filled only when an external fuel tank was attached.

Probably it'll come in the future but still we shouldn't expect anything more than a slider. The standard procedure would be to fuel the front tanks first and rear one afterwards. With slider this would be that if rear tanks are installed, everything above certain % of the fuel would go into rear tanks. In either case the bottom tanks were fed from the top ones.

[Combat Wombat]

I think you will find that the top tank drained into the bottom tank.

 

I know one thing It does not last long when zipping up to 10k for some testing !:drink:

[bongodriver]

I wouldn't say there were severe stability issues, MkXVI's were commonly fitted with rear tanks, the main condition was that combat should be avoided with a certain level of fuel in the rear tank.

[flyco]

The official RAF Pilot's Notes include the following note at the start of the 'Handling' section

 

'Except for'special operations as directed by the appropriate Area Commander, the rear fuselage tanks must not be used and their cocks should be wired OFF.'

 

The Notes also say that

 

'When the rear fuselage tanks are full there is a very marked reduction in longitudinal stability, the aircraft tightens in turns at all altitudes and, in this condition, is restricted to straight flying, and only gentle manoeuvres; accuratentrimming is not possible and instrument flying should be avoided whenever possible.'

 

The tanks are not fitted on the 'tear drop' hood version, presumably because the reduced aft keel area would further reduce the directional stability to an unacceptable level.

 

I would have thought that this implies that the C of G is very close to the aft limit with rear tanks full, and that the tanks are restricted to ferry flights and flights where there is a long transit before reaching an operational area.

 

I certainly am assuming that the tanks (if they are there at all in the simulation) are not routinely filled or used.

[Redglyph]

I didn't say there was! :)

 

I said you can fuel different tanks. There is a graphic so you can see exactly where the fuel is in each tank in any aircraft. So in the mustang or b17 or spit or whatever you can see exactly how the CoG will change and can decide where you want your fuel.

My question is can this be done in dcs and also does this mk9 have rear tanks modelled?

Kind of hard to tell from just a percentage bar!

 

Cheers

Chris

 

I wasn't sure because of the "you can fill each tank" bit, as if they were independent :)

 

So the top and bottom should really be considered as a 47+38 fuel tank, and apparently in this model there is only a gauge for the bottom, to make it "easier" (BTW, interesting considerations of that era in this post / thread). So no gauge for the top tank.

 

In A2A they indicate the weight or capacity, here they show the percentage. From that, you know how much you'd fill the tank with the refuel gizmo. I don't know whether that's better than knowing how much gallons you have, it's probably a matter of preference, or getting used to.

 

Note: There's currently a little quirk with the refuel procedure, it won't tell you when it's done, and it's only filled to a certain percentage even if you asked more.

[MiloMorai]

The official RAF Pilot's Notes include the following note at the start of the 'Handling' section

 

'Except for'special operations as directed by the appropriate Area Commander, the rear fuselage tanks must not be used and their cocks should be wired OFF.'

What is the publishing date for the manual?

[Winchester]

In A2A they indicate the weight or capacity, here they show the percentage. From that, you know how much you'd fill the tank with the refuel gizmo. I don't know whether that's better than knowing how much gallons you have, it's probably a matter of preference, or getting used to.

 

It's more comprehensive than just weight or percentage, you can actually point to a tank with the mouse and roll the mouse wheel to increase the quantity in each tank. For example the b17 you can fill any tank as much or as little as you want as you get a visual indication of how much fuel is in each tank. It is very useful for aircraft with multiple tanks spread throughout the fuselage and/or wings. I was hoping there was a similar way of filling each tank in dcs or at least knowing if there was fuel in the rear. I know about the spits top and bottom tank and how they feed.

I could do without the fancy visual display, even just having a percentage quantity for each tank would be useful. Assuming of course that this spit has rear tanks which I'm not sure has been confirmed either way!

 

Chris

[Redglyph]

It's more comprehensive than just weight or percentage, you can actually point to a tank with the mouse and roll the mouse wheel to increase the quantity in each tank. For example the b17 you can fill any tank as much or as little as you want as you get a visual indication of how much fuel is in each tank. It is very useful for aircraft with multiple tanks spread throughout the fuselage and/or wings. I was hoping there was a similar way of filling each tank in dcs or at least knowing if there was fuel in the rear. I know about the spits top and bottom tank and how they feed.

I could do without the fancy visual display, even just having a percentage quantity for each tank would be useful. Assuming of course that this spit has rear tanks which I'm not sure has been confirmed either way!

 

Chris

Yes, for the B-17 you can select the tank configuration and have more control. But on the Spit, top and bottom tanks are just one entity. In A2A's Spitfires, rolling the mouse will fill the bottom tank, then the top tank, so the whole from 0 to 100 percent. It's really the same in A2A's and DCS'. It's not possible to fill the top tank if the bottom is not full, it's just the way it is.

 

Currently there is no rear tank.

[Winchester]

Yeah I get the spit tanks. I wasn't really comparing the two spits, it was more a wish of how you can fill tanks on aircraft that have multiple tank positions. Just wanting dcs to be better where it can improve!

So is that definite? No rear tanks? The manual clearly shows them but haven't seen anything saying there aren't any.

Thanks for the input.

 

Chris

[Redglyph]

I don't know whether it's definite or not, that's for ED to say.

 

Yes, I see your point. But it seems the emphasis in DCS is more on the combat and not as much on the study-level as aircraft by A2A, PMDG, FSL and so on, they keep that as simple as possible for the user (I'm not talking about the internal model).

 

For instance there is no persistence, unfortunately, so you can't have a campaign in which you need to take care of your plane to keep it running from the first mission to the last, or minimize the number of repairs. It's not even possible (AFAIK) to store information from one mission to the next to emulate that with a lua script :( There would be a lot of interesting possibilities though, it's really sad.

 

And so you can't live with used parts either, like a worn-out tyre on the B-17 for example, or with fouled plugs - those guys really have great ideas, and it's been there for quite a while, I'm surprised it hasn't caught up here.

[nomdeplume]

The manual does mention that the rear fuel tank was installed on some aircraft with clipped wings, and that using the full-length wings was prohibited on those aircraft. So maybe when the clipped wing variant is available the rear tank could be available on those?