[PENDING UPDATE] Harrier Fuel Burn 2.7 Open Beta

[Hawkeye_UK]

Guys there seem's to be a huge change in the Harrier Fuel burn in 2.7.

 

I note about a year ago ( i would have to go back to check exact patch) however fuel flow was reworked and commented that it had now been correct and was as it should be.

 

I note in 2.7, accross all throttle ranges fuel use has shot up, reducing the harrier strike range drastically, so a burn rate on the dash of over 530 on short take offs.  Even cruising around well below military power its near 400.  Note that when pushing the throttles all the way up to max (over 103) then engine spools pretty quickly to that stage however the fuel counter keeps on clocking higher for a full 10 seconds or more to well over 500.  Seems out of kilter with the rest of the engine variables.

 

Why the change, also why no reference in the patch notes?  

[Gunnar81]

Can confirm. At 20,000ft, engine at around 82rpms the fuel flow used to be around 077, now it sitting up around 090-094. It is definitely drinking for more fuel for sure.

[Vakarian]

Thanks for confirming my suspicions. I did little test yesterday when I saw patch notes posted on some other discord (I'm no longer member of RB discord, but nice so see that patchnotes were posted on forum too.... end sarcasm) that the high altitude efficiency was adjusted, but all I saw was massive increase in fuel flow. At FL400, around 90% RPM fuel flow is around 80, but before update was in 50-60 range. FL300, increase is a lot more. 

 

Also, one other thing I noticed but I'll need to run more tests is that when approaching FL500 (so from 49900 ft and higher) AoA seemed to increase rapidly, like some artificial limit was placed on FL500 being the ceiling. The climb was 200FPM rate, so I didn't pull too hard on the stick, but these last 100 ft the AoA increased by 3-4 degrees which led me from 7.5 degree AoA climb to unmaintainable 10+ degree climb and I began to lose altitude.

 

 

[Hawkeye_UK]

My discussion was on about low level flight and upto 20,000 feet.  Tend to fly the Harrier down in the weeds most of the time.  

 

Was using 2000lbs for a 60 mile round trip lol at low level and this was without going above 103 except for a few seconds on takeoff (short rolling from farp pad).

Ps nope ive not seen any notes released about fuel changes? I must have missed something but ive gone back to check the patch logs and nothing there?

 

[Vakarian]

Yeah, of course. Low level flying will burn more fuel and from what I've seen the fuel flow increase is all across the board.

 

I have also not seen any changes about fuel flow. I've seen that high altitude efficiency was adjusted so I tried to see how it behaves now, but I only found out that it guzzles more fuel. It's still easily reaching high altitudes, only thing changed is higher fuel flow.

[Hawkeye_UK]

Ok so have just a test flight.  Its way off where it needs to be, SME's cannot have tested this current fuel flow?  I did a 100 mile radius Close Air Support mission replicating a real world on call mission with 6Mk 82SE and Gun, full internal fuel.  Allowed for full continuous thrust for takeoff plus 150 seconds, climbed to a cruise altitude of 35,000 feet within parameters mach, kept within parameters max endurance, descent at 20 miles from offset CAS target with minimum thrust to save fuel.  Began a 1 hour loiter period just under 300 at 5000 feet.  Lasted 50 minutes before running out of fuel.  Realistically to make the flight back i would have had to have left around 15 mins earlier, oh and thats without a 5%  reserve plus 10 minute loiter time that this sortie profile allows for on landing in RL.  It also had a pre positioned INS and very short taxi to take off so less fuel than you would expect from mission start to takeoff.  You need to get your SME to undertake this profile and feedback to the community, its currently not right.

 

I would expect to be able to loiter, winds aloft conditions aside given it was no wind with a ball park of 80 minutes and still make it back.  Please can you update the community on how this has gone so far off from reality?

Edited April 24, 2021 by Hawkeye_UK

[myHelljumper]

The update to the engine is not complete, the rest will come out next update.

 

Test it back at this time and tell me if you still think it's a problem.

[Hawkeye_UK]

Thanks Helljumper - when can we expect the Harrier fix?  Will this be pushed as a hotfix given the severe impact to operational endurance, aka makes the Harrier no longer capable for the role it was intended and for pre defined farp locations on multiplayer its made it a bit of a nightmare.

 

Or perhaps a simple solution is to hotfix the fuel ratio back to prior patch as really these need to be released together, im not quite sure on why we have released half an update.  A sense check would have suggested to wait until both ready unless im missing something?

[Freefall231]

hotfix is expected when?

 

Hope 'next update' isn't implying next month? that would be very bad.

 

Beta or no beta, issue of this severity should never have made it to the customers. Sorry. 

P.S my personal best FPM at the moment is 563 lbs/min.  

Edited April 27, 2021 by Destro

[Alpiinoo]

I hope update will not delay. 

[AlphaJuliet]

Hey,

Should be fixed, give me a heads up if not.

Cheers,

Alpha