correct as is A10C II Fuel level too low at start of missions Beta 2.7.9.18080

[BudgietheLittleHelicopter]

I am running DCS world beta 2.7.9.18080, single player, and I am finding too low levels of fuel at the start of missions / campaigns. I initially noticed it in DCS Liberation, but I did a few tests without Liberation to exclude this as as cause.

Example 1:

Mission editor - a10C II at Batumi airport with no weapons. In mission editor it shows 100% fuel, after starting the fuel gauge shows only up to 2 (six is maximum)

Example 2:

A10C II instant action free flight - in this mission the fuel gauge shows less than 0.5 fuel. As this mission is intended to fly around, I would expect a high level of fuel (and almost no weapons). So another indication that there is something wrong with the fuel calculation or fuel gauge or something related.

Example 3

A10C II instant action CAS Nevada - near zero fuel at the start of the mission

 

mission editor fuel test.miz

Edited January 6, 2022 by BudgietheLittleHelicopter

[Solo_Turk]

change your fuel knob(under fuel gauge) to MAIN for main fuel tanks status

[BIGNEWY]

It looks good here, as solo_turk suggest check you are switching to main on the fuel dial

thanks

[BudgietheLittleHelicopter]

Thank you Solo_Turk that seems to be the issue. For example below I switched the fuel knob to main in the instant action CAS Nevada mission. And the gauge went up to 3.

Shouldn't the fuel gauge be set to MAIN as standard?

 

Edited January 6, 2022 by BudgietheLittleHelicopter

[BudgietheLittleHelicopter]

Thank you for replying BigNEWY. I have now checked it for the Nevada CAS and the Caucasus mission editor case and in both cases it is due to the position of the fuel gauge knob. I am not sure whether this is due to the changes from A10C to A10C II, but shouldn't the knob be set to INT or MAIN as a standard? In which position was it for you when you started the mission? I wonder whether the last position of the knob is carried over from a previous mission or campaign. It is a minor issue.

In any case thank you gents for responding so quickly.

Edited January 6, 2022 by BudgietheLittleHelicopter

[BIGNEWY]

I will try and find out, but I dont remember it being any different.  

[Vakarian]

Instead of focusing on the gauges, look at the indicator showing total amount of fuel. Gauges only show specific fuel tanks and it's kinda irrelevant to begin with. If you want to know quickly total amount of fuel, look at the number indicator.

[Yurgon]

In the A-10C, the fuel indicator used to be in the MAIN (or was it INT?) position by default.

With the A-10C II module, this was changed to display the wing tanks by default.

AFAIK this is the proper procedure and reflects real life operations. Pilots will set the indicator to show only fuel from the WING tanks; once the wings are empty, they switch over to MAIN. After refueling, they switch back to WING to confirm that the indicator is working properly. Also, during an OPS Check, pilots will announce a changed state, like "Two, all systems green, fuel 6000, wings dry, 6 by BDU-33 and full gun with TP" or something along those lines.

The totalizer is not affected by the display selector and should always show the amount of fuel remaining.

[jaylw314]

Another motive for having the switch set to WING is that the wing tanks are less protected (integral tanks) than the main tanks in the fuselage (tear-resistant bladders).  As such, I imagine one would prefer to enter combat with the wing tanks empty, although I have no idea if that's a standard procedure IRL.

I believe the fuel indicator in the A-10C module was previously set to INT by default.  It's a good setting to have if you want a quick visual reflection of your total fuel (assuming no external tanks), since the full scale essentially becomes a "empty/full" fuel gauge

 

Edited January 6, 2022 by jaylw314

[BudgietheLittleHelicopter]

I guess I was leaning too much on my earlier learned behaviour from the previous version. Thanks for the interesting comments. I did wonder why I didn't get any bingo fuel messages from my AI wingman when I was doing some DCS Liberation missions.

[Stuka]

The default position of the knob was changed per pilot feedback.

[ASAP]

3 hours ago, Yurgon said:

In the A-10C, the fuel indicator used to be in the MAIN (or was it INT?) position by default.

With the A-10C II module, this was changed to display the wing tanks by default.

AFAIK this is the proper procedure and reflects real life operations. Pilots will set the indicator to show only fuel from the WING tanks; once the wings are empty, they switch over to MAIN. After refueling, they switch back to WING to confirm that the indicator is working properly. Also, during an OPS Check, pilots will announce a changed state, like "Two, all systems green, fuel 6000, wings dry, 6 by BDU-33 and full gun with TP" or something along those lines.

The totalizer is not affected by the display selector and should always show the amount of fuel remaining.

100% correct about the fuel and the indicator.

For the comm, fighter pilots talk as little as possible to keep the radios clear for important stuff. Real world during ops checks the only thing verbalized is fuel so the flight lead can keep track. It sounds like:

FL: "Hawg ops check, 1's 7.2"

2: "2's 7.3"

when either jet gets to the point where they have empty wing tanks they would give an advisory call

2: "2's 6.9, wings dry"

If the flight lead gets there first he'd just do an ops check and add wings dry to his fuel.

Flight leads can change up what they want to throw into their ops check calls of course, but it's an accepted standard that most people follow. The only other thing that sometimes gets thrown in with ops checks is "good pressure" after the initial climb above 13,000 feet to verify all jets are pressurizing correctly. Wingmen strive to immitate flight lead for all the checks so if FL says "Hawg ops check, 1's 7 thousand 5 hundred, good pressure", 2 would say "2's 7 thousand 3 hundred, good pressure" as opposed to "2's 7.3, good pressure". Anything else is stated in an ops check is by exception.

[Yurgon]

5 hours ago, ASAP said:

For the comm, fighter pilots talk as little as possible to keep the radios clear for important stuff. Real world during ops checks the only thing verbalized is fuel so the flight lead can keep track.

Huh, good to know!

In my squad we would say "Flight, Ops Check, omit weapons readback" to prevent wingmen from, well, reading back their full weapon loadout.

Checking with the guys on our source for that.

[ASAP]

Fighter pilot rule #1: Sound cool on the radios.

If the flight lead needs to know he can always say "2, say rounds remaining" or something to that effect. The old joke is there's only 4 things a wingman is allowed to say unless directly asked a question:

"2"

"Mayday"

"Lead you appear to be on fire"

"Next rounds on me" < there are other variations of that last one but I'll keep it PC

That's a bit outdated and now the "thinking wingman" is a thing, but there's definity a time to speak up and a time to STFU as #2. Of course that only works in the AF because each squadron and MDS has its published standards which spells out what all the assumptions are and that's the way they train day in and day out, so everyone has a common mental model of what's happening (for example: off target it's assumed the wingman was successful in the attack and is visual on his flight lead so he doesn't need to call "2's visual, successfull", he could just flow back to his briefed formation position automatically). Flight leads could also brief something as non-standard and say the flight will do something different. End of the day this is a game for peoples enjoyment so there's no wrong answer as long as it works for your group. Just throwing it out there for the people that want the extra realism