Out of Gas?

[Worthless]

Just curious. I know CFS2 is a 10 yr old sim and there are lots of flaws, but I'm just curious about this. I looked up the specs on an F4F-4. It looks to me like this AC should be able on a standard load out of fuel (144gal) in a center tank, to have range of about 800 miles. I know wind and weather conditions will affect this number. Still, when I go for a hop out of Henderson, and using warping to reach Vila, which is about 190 miles distant, I fall out of the sky just past the Russell's. Now that's only about 100 miles out from base. Does anyone know if warping corrupts the actual range in CFS2?

Haven't expended the time to see how far the F4F-4 will stay in the air in real time.

[bearcat241]

Yes, warping does affect fuel consumption. Its best to set your throttle and mixture to lowest cruise settings before hitting the warp command. If you're at full throttle and rich mixture when you hit the warp, the sim will calculate your fuel consumption over the distance to the next waypoint at this rate, which in many cases leaves you dry when you reach the waypoint.

In all prop aircraft performance specs, max range numbers are always based on minimum cruise speed at lean mixture and optimal cruise altitude. If you deviate from this you can't expect to hit the max range, whether warping or not.

[Worthless]

Thanks BC. Should have added to my original query, I set fuel mixture/manifold/RPM at lowest setting. Mix at about 60 % Manifold at about 35 and RPM at about 2200. This gave me about 160 airspeed. Still, it fell out of the air.

[bearcat241]

Well, in that case, if the sim cheats you, then return the favor by adding a a CFO refuel gauge to your panel. Refuel when you come out of warp and restart the engine.

By the way, the stock airfile reflects a capacity of 117 gals in the single main...could this be the problem?

[Shadow Wolf 07]

Thanks BC. Should have added to my original query, I set fuel mixture/manifold/RPM at lowest setting. Mix at about 60 % Manifold at about 35 and RPM at about 2200. This gave me about 160 airspeed. Still, it fell out of the air.

Once you are at cruise alt and speed, have set the mixture to lean, ease back on the prop pitch from combat to about 85% and then ease back on the throttle to cruise speed. You should be able to get from Henderson to Espiritu Santo - Vila/Munda easily. Great coaching Bearcat241!

[Allen]

Lower you speed with mission builder. Your mixture/manifold/RPM setting won't help as much as you would think. When you hit warp the game changes the mixture/manifold/RPM settings to fly at the speed listed in the waypoints.

I built a quick test mission. At 180 knots you can fly to Vila by warp with NO drop tanks and at FULL mixture/manifold/RPM settings. I had 62% of fuel left over Vila and when I warped back to Henderson I had 20% left.

I'm attaching my test mission below.

Attachment 65231

[Worthless]

Lower you speed with mission builder. Your mixture/manifold/RPM setting won't help as much as you would think. When you hit warp the game changes the mixture/manifold/RPM settings to fly at the speed listed in the waypoints.

I built a quick test mission. At 180 knots you can fly to Vila by warp with NO drop tanks and at FULL mixture/manifold/RPM settings. I had 62% of fuel left over Vila and when I warped back to Henderson I had 20% left.

I'm attaching my test mission below.

Attachment 65231

Thanks Allen,

I'm shaking my head again. Why didn't I think of that. It seems so simple. Got to head back out again, but I'll give it a whirl as soon as I return.

[Worthless]

Allen,

That was it all right. I set cruise in MB to 160 and had plenty of gas to spare. Many thanks!