How much fuel?

As many of you know, I'm not often in favour of the "dumbed-down" approach to Flight Sim - there's a place for it, but at the same time I think it's relevant to learn how the aircraft we fly really work (that's part of the challenge of being PIC). So, it's bit strange for me to give a heads-up on something like this :icon_lol: :

FS2004 (ACOF) - Misc. FS2004 Utility--FuelUp!
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Name: fuelup.zip Size: 49,324 Date: 01-05-2010
http://www.flightsim.com/o/fuelup.gif FS2004 Utility--FuelUp! fuel and ETE (time enroute) calculator. FuelUp! is a super simple fuel and time enroute calculator for those who are too lazy to spend too much time searching and entering whole masses of data that "serious" fuel calculators typically require. By Dmitry Stepin.


Seriously though, from the docs (I have yet to test it) it might save a few "Gimli-gliders" or other embarrassing moments of silence when the tanks run dry, yet get us to not always run with full tanks and not get airborne :kilroy:

Rob

Wish I'd had one of those, in the middle of the night, in the middle of the Atlantic, with nothing but a Puss Moth between me and an extended swim :d

If you have FSNav, you can do roughly the same thing. You just need to know roughly how much fuel you'll be drinking during climb, cruise, and descent - and a rough cruising speed/altitude. When you enter new data, it's saved to the aircraft.ini for future use.

I use the RKG fuel status gauge.

I use a simpleton method that I read about years ago. Divide the miles in the flight plan by the max range of aircraft and add 15%. So if I'm flying plane with range of 600 miles and the flight is 200 miles, 200/600 = .33 + .15 = .48. So I load 48% of the total fuel capacity of the plane. It works quite well. Sometimes the max range of the plane needs to be tweaked. If you run out of fuel or don't have sufficient reserves left at the end of your flight, lessen the max range that you use in the fuel calculations for that plane. :wavey:

one point of note in this app: you have to build your own plane profiles to get teh calculator to work. Havent gotten that far yet.

Many factors affect the specific fuel cousumption of an aircraft. Weight altitude and power settings ate the big ones. In the Round The World Race it is usually an important factor as we are trying to get as far and as fast as possible, often in planes not known for their fuel economy such as WWII fighters.

However sometimes the FS specific fuel consumption can be way off! A case in point, I have quite a bit of time in the past as a 737 Captain and have a pretty good idea of how much fuel it takes to get from point A to B. That not withstanding.... I managed to run out of fuel on a relatively short leg in the RTW and managed to glide the last 15 miles and land right at the threshold (at night).... The main culprit? in descent jets are mostly gliders and will use almost no fuel in descent... not so with FS....

The small addon application AFSD has a useful tool for checking your specific fuel consumption and range in a real time manner at any point in the flight.

Cheers: T