External fuel goes poof when stopped

[mahuja]

Steps to reproduce:

1 - Load external tanks

2 - Set external tanks to STOP feeding

3 - Fly

 

Expected:

External tank will retain its fuel until told to feed again. Aircraft weight reduced slowly with fuel consumption.

 

Actual:

Suddenly the fuel does not exist - as if the bottom fell out of the tank. Aircraft weight (ddi chklist page) also changes abruptly.

f18 external fuel poof.trk

[mahuja]

May be related to

https://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=221304

but this does not require setting the tanks to stop before takeoff.

 

See also

https://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=219851

whose description appears to be opposite and track file leads to a plane crash in ~3min30.

 

Also, setting the tanks to feed again, even override, does not refill other tanks, so the fuel appears to actually be gone, rather than just a sensor malfunction that would feed into the aircraft weight calculation.

 

It appears to happen the moment I go from negative to zero G.

[Woody01]

Interesting this is still happening. One of those links above is to my thread about this. The first track file is somehow different from what happened but lower in the thread I posted a much shorter track file that shows this.

I noticed it was happening when I pushed negative G. I hope this gets addressed.

[3WA]

Yeah, this is why I haven't bought F-18 yet. It seems to still be in Alpha.

[Woody01]

Well 3WA I find the FA18 so far the most awesome flight sim experience yet for me in 27 years of being intensely interested in the genre, so I feel sorry for you missing out. This sort of minor detail on the whole scope of it is quite small and also considering it 'could' be something we are doing wrong. It would be just nice to know either way.

 

Interestingly I haven't followed up on this because basically I learnt to refuel on a dime, so I am less interested in the tank switches and I carry less tanks and more ordinates. But it would be nice to know what to expect in this aspect of the FA18.

[Svend_Dellepude]

Yeah, this is why I haven't bought F-18 yet. It seems to still be in Alpha.

 

Early acces.

[Eldur]

Well the Hornet is further down the road in it's early access period than Windows 10. No reason not to buy it.

[mahuja]

Interesting this is still happening. One of those links above is to my thread about this. The first track file is somehow different from what happened but lower in the thread I posted a much shorter track file that shows this.

I noticed it was happening when I pushed negative G. I hope this gets addressed.

 

I watched the shorter track, and around 3min30 the player vehicle crashed into the side of a hill. I'm guessing it's a version mismatch issue.

 

 

LOL @ win10.

 

this is why I haven't bought F-18 yet

 

Then what planes are you flying, if you don't mind me asking?

This is such specialized minutiae - you have to start inspecting the dark corners to find this roach.

 

For the more obvious use case, extending the range slightly by draining one set of tanks first and dropping that as it empties, doesn't help by much more than a few miles.

 

 

Reading into the natops, stopping external tanks has an interesting second use case. You can stop the fuel flow so it mostly drains the internal tanks, but as the internal tanks reach a certain low fuel state, it will automatically refill from them. I'm assuming it'll only pull a little at a time, which keeps the internal tanks mostly empty.

 

If I keep selective jettison set up (it's part of my preflight checklist) and very handy (on hotas) that gives you LOADS of maneuverability any time without sacrificing station time until I need that.

 

For that second use case, this bug half way automates that, still leaving you with a bit of added drag. (Presumably)