Mission 1 - Fuel

[funkster]

Hi there.

Loving the work your have put into these campaigns - your passion for the history of the squadrons is evident. 

It is a shame about the ED AI ruining things but as you have stated you can work around it by being more of a singleton and hanging back from your formation. 

Anyway quick question regarding mission 1 - I have tried this twice (both successfully) but I have had to ditch twice due to fuel. Once at  sea and once at High Halden.  I have noticed a couple of things and wanted to check I am not missing something. 

I switch to my drop tank straight after take off. This seems to run out about half way across the outward channel crossing. However the rest of the flight don't drop them until combat near Aberville? Do I need to fill this or something?

Even if I fly economically with no combat / trimmed out etc  I don't believe I would have enough fuel to get back to Biggins Hill. Has something changed?

[Reflected]

Hi,

The AI only drops their tank when they engage, it's hard coded. It doesn't really matter though...

You need to be very conscious about fuel management in the campaign, just like in real life. Fuel management in the DCS Spit is just like in real life, and the distances you need to fly are the exact same too, so real pilots were facing the same problems.

When you turn on the drop tank, turn off the main tank too. It usually lasts until reaching combat altitude, nearly at the French coast. When you don't need it, decrease that boost and RPM, and worst case you land at Hawkinge or High Halden. But during testing I never ran out of fuel before making it back to Biggin - sometimes with only 3 gallons left though...

[funkster]

Thank you so much for your quick response.  I thought that may be the case but wanted to make sure I wasn't doing something stupid. 

Thank you for an amazing , immersive campaign! Love your videos too! Your passion for detail certainly comes across. Well done. 

[Mermoz]

just did the mission for the first time and yeah fuel saving is needed.

I could not cut off the main tank until I reached 2000ft though (it would not feed), but once we began to climb worked as advertised is it normal?

in the end my drop tank went empty a bit before the bombing target. I did a few minutes of BFM with a few hits... then went full throttle for the coast. Then I reduced power to save fuel. Landed at Begin Hill with just enough to taxi... (the engine flamed out then).

Maybe to add to the pilot notes a best conservation setting for rpm and boost? we only have the continous max power, I think a pilot in these kind of missions would have noted the power setting to save as much fuel as he could.

[Reflected]

The lower the power the lower the consumption, that’s all. 
in these missions you fly the same aircraft with the same amount of fuel along the same route as in real life. This was the reality of ww2 RAF pilots.

 

This is what I mean when I say you really need to learn to fly the given module in a realistic way in order to play these campaigns.   But that’s the beauty of it all  these situations that were daily occurrence in ww2 would never happen in multiplayer or an instant action mission. 

[PawlaczGMD]

These missions are cutting it real close. I try to fly conservatively in transit, but in combat, I give it my all. Whether I can make it back to Biggin really depends on the length of combat for me. Most of the time I'm not able to make it back all the way, so I land at Lympe or Hawking with a few gallons to spare. They are also really easy to find right off the coast as a bonus. I'm too lazy to transit back to Biggin, but I imagine my guy is doing that off-screen after borrowing some fuel. This seems more realistic/reasonable to me than limiting your power in combat. Is this sort of hop realistic? 

 

BTW, the manual gives you settings for maximum distance: 3k ft, 190 mph, 1800 RPM. If you really stick to this right at the French coast, I think you should be able to just about make it. However, you flight travels faster.

[Reflected]

The length of the mission is what it was in real life so it’s really your decision. Yes they sometimes landed elsewhere when they got lost or low on fuel. 

[Ghost79]

I've played through this campaign sometime last year and always managed to get back to Biggin.  I checked my play through of mission 1 and landed at Biggin with just under 10 gals left.

 

Tip: Only use high power (+8 to +10 boost with 3,000 RPM) on take-off and to climb with the AI, and dogfighting of course.  All other times use cruise setting of +4 to +6 boost with 2,650 RPM.  Or if your really struggling, try and cruise at +2 to +4 boost at 2,400 RPM.

 

If you haven't already, check out Chucks guide on the Spit, it has a good reference table on engine settings and their respective fuel consumption rates.