correct as-is Fuel tanks fill order/priority

[Bozon]

Currently the ground crew logic is that when you ask for a fuel % they first fill the outer tanks to the brim, and only then put fuel in the main tanks.

The result of this is that when you start with the default 66% the outer tanks are full but the main tank is mostly empty. If you ask for 50% or less, they will drain the main tank and you will end up with full outer tanks and almost/no fuel in the main.

This does not make sense - for a number of reasons the priority during flight is to empty the outer tanks first, not the least of which is that the outer tanks are not shared between the engines and each tank feeds only the engine next to it - a fuel leak will mean the loss of an engine!

Please make it so the main inner tanks are filled before the outer tanks.

[peachmonkey]

good call, I've noticed it too during some of my missions. The outer tanks were 80% full while the main tanks had 0% fuel in them. I thought it was my error in something, but I've flown this mission couple more times since then it's the same situation, i.e. the main tanks have 0 fuel in them...

 

[grafspee]

So if main tank will be filled first then outer tanks will be empty, manual says to use outer tanks for engine start up so you will not be able to fallow start up procedure.

Edited May 30, 2022 by grafspee

[Bozon]

14 minutes ago, grafspee said:

So if main tank will be filled first then outer tanks will be empty, manual says to use outer tanks for engine start up so you will not be able to fallow start up procedure.

 

Sure. But you will have fuel in the outer tanks if your fuel % is high enough.

The fuel tank with which you start the engine is insignificant. The manual says to start with the outer tanks so you know they work. IIRC it then says to switch to main to check that too. I don’t care if the outer tanks work when I have no in fuel in them.

Ideally, you will load most of the fuel in the inner/main and have a few gallons in the outer tanks as spare/emergency. 

[grafspee]

37 minutes ago, Bozon said:

Sure. But you will have fuel in the outer tanks if your fuel % is high enough.

The fuel tank with which you start the engine is insignificant. The manual says to start with the outer tanks so you know they work. IIRC it then says to switch to main to check that too. I don’t care if the outer tanks work when I have no in fuel in them.

Ideally, you will load most of the fuel in the inner/main and have a few gallons in the outer tanks as spare/emergency. 

The best way would be, to be able to tell crew how much fuel do you want in each tank, for example 15% in outer and half main tank, that would be ideal i think.

This simplified version some how worked in previous birds, but in mosquito fule system is much more complex.

Edited May 30, 2022 by grafspee

[Mogster]

It would be good to know how the real aircraft was loaded. You’d imagine the main tanks would be loaded first, or would you always take a full fuel load? just in case. Short filling then ditching in the Channel would seem stupid.

[grafspee]

Probably they take all fuel that they could, even long range fuel tank could be added additionally to extend the range, if mission was deep in enemy territory to bomb some infrastructure then yes, tank would be filled to the top.

[Bozon]

FB.VI rarely did short range & short endurance missions - there were plenty silly little single engine fighter-bombers for that. FB.VIs either went on deep penetration missions, or long patrols.

However, after d-day there were shorter range missions of interdiction flown at night.

Speculation: even when 100% was not required, they still carried a “significant” fuel load, which means there will be some fuel in the outer tanks.

For DCS we should be allowed to play with loadouts that were possible even if not used in practice. Here simple logic needs to be applied, and to me simple logic says to fill the inner tanks first.

[NineLine]

We have already adjusted how the tanks take fuel, and I believe this was from an SME for the aircraft, I believe it is correct as is, as noted we tend to use the aircraft differently than they did back in the day. 

As always if you have evidence to something else we are happy to take a look.

[Bozon]

16 hours ago, NineLine said:

We have already adjusted how the tanks take fuel, and I believe this was from an SME for the aircraft, I believe it is correct as is, as noted we tend to use the aircraft differently than they did back in the day. 

As always if you have evidence to something else we are happy to take a look.

Thanks for looking into this.

As I said, I doubt their ever took off in a fresh plane with 50% or less of the total capacity, so this is mostly a “game” issue. So far I also load the plane with at least 50% fuel and thus there is still a reasonable amount in the main tank. I can live with this