Fuel leak warning needed

If you dive too hard, you get an "overspeed damage warning." This is a warning about damage that you cannot otherwise see.

Why not a similar warning for fuel leaks? When fuel tanks were hit, and leaked (as opposed to just exploding or burning), pilots often could see warning signs. They could smell fuel fumes. They could see fuel spraying about or leaking around their feet.

In WOFF, you have no idea if you've suffered a fuel leak unless you have the F5 data displayed, and only then when you see the fuel capacity dropping at an unusual rate.

Just my opinion.

Nowi

What you said is exactly why I hit the F5 button the moment I see a notification that there have been bullet hits on my plane to see if my fuel is dropping.

Or in planes with pressurized fuel tanks, the engine stopped as soon as the tanks were hit. Be happy this is not modeled in the sim.

I'm okay with it as is... my question is... does the game produce a distinctive sound when your fuel tank gets hit? because I could learn to recognize that!

No just characteristic odour :-).
Sorry, could not resist.

Jara, do you have the scratch and sniff peripheral? Is it USB compliant? How well does it work with the WWI petrol grade? How can you distinguish the smell with all that castor oil being sprayed in your face? Can you smoke while gaming?

Yep, USB3.0 only. Smoking is strictly prohibited.

On a more serious note, I don’t think the real pilots had the luxury of a specific sound for bullets hitting the tanks. There was a sound of bullets hitting wood or metal if you could hear it over the roar of the engine, unless the engine was already dead, then you would also have the sounds of bullets hitting canvas and meat. So, unless you have a SmellBlaster, you won’t be able to reproduce it.

You generally can see a faint stream of white vapour behind the aircraft. Could be steam sometimes but that would take too much luck...

What Raine said. You can see a small leak as a slight trail of white smoke, and there are heavier ones too.


Or bring up the dials/data Hud and you can see fuel going down.

Thats what I do and after I have noticed the leak I put the planes nose to home front, open the throtle to max and hoping I can get a safe glide to the friendly side of the line.

If only the HUD was really invented in 1915

The first time Von Richthofen was shot down, on March 6 1917, it was a fuel tank hit. He said he heard a loud bang, then smelled the petrol. He shut off his engine and immediately dived to a landing.*


I agree, there should be some kind of immediate warning for an unmistakable smell.

*Under the Guns of the Red Baron, Norman Franks, Hal Giblin and Nigel McCrery, Grub Street Press, 1998

Well, there is a "Low Fuel" message that also pops up when you hit 20% fuel, I believe - I actually tend to notice that before anything else. I'd say it's almost the same thing, considering you have to have a leak already draining your tank by the time you smell it

Otherwise, fuel leaks are not always a dead ringer - even on modern aircraft. Consider, for example, the 2001 incident on an Air Transat A330, which made a deadstick landing in the Azores - 1990s aircraft with multiple tanks and various alert systems, two pilots with over 20,000 combined flight hours, and they still failed to identify a 1-gallon-per-second fuel leak for over half an hour despite being aware that something wasn't right with their aircraft. Hints are good and all, but there's no substitute for proper monitoring of instruments - and no escaping the fact that sometimes, you might still miss it!