I've been playing a campaign (Balkans) and flying several missions. But I'm a little confused on fuel load-out requirements.

Before taking off on a mission, how much fuel is needed for a given mission? I assume this is based on the distance to the target, airspeed, altitude, and my load-out (bombs/missiles). In the load-out screen for picking AA/AG/Other, there are some numbers at the top left of the screen. Fuel, drag, weight,... but nothing that indicates my plane needs X amount of fuel based on my mission/loadout.

I'm not very good at refueling, so basically I carry 2 ext fuel tanks to get me to targets that seem to be far away.

Another question. Is there an indicator for Ext view tanks empty? Cause I have yet to figure out when to jettison them.

Jonathan

Balkans you will typically need 2 bags or a centerline and refuel. Korea you can get away with no externals tanks on the short flights. As the distance increases you will need a centerline or 2 bags.

Typically a flight that is an hour long can go just on internal fuel, 1.5 hr or less can go with centerline and 2 hr or longer will require 2 wings or 3 tanks.

When fuel total is 7100 your external tanks are empty.

To ensure what each tank is reading, look down one view in the 2D pit. Select the Fuel Qty Switch and move to Ext Wing or Ext C/L then glance at Fuel Gauge which is above the Caution panel on right side.

For what it's worth, IRL pilots don't drop the tanks just cause they're empty. BTW, at www.72ndvfw.org you can find an "operator's checklist" in the downloads section, which also includes a fuel planning methodology.

Thanks for the advert Kosmo.

We put a lot of time and effort into the checklist. The fuel data was compiled over 100s of flights with various loadouts. Then given to "virgin" pilots to see if it helped and if it was fairly accurate. Fortunately it helped out tremendously and was pretty damn accurate.

I must say that Gunny deserves a big thanks for getting it on paper and thanks to all the other pilots for logging the hours.

Hag

Thanks for the link/info. I went thru the "Example Flight" on page 51 in the Operator's Checklist. All them numbers and charts. Will have to go thru it later on.

Almost need a small program to calculate the required fuel for a given mission-loadout.

usually i can estimate the required fuel amount by the combat radius of the mission.
here is what I do:
if the radius is less than 140 nm, no external fuel tanks are needed. (except for CAP, because you need to stay on station for a while)
between 140 and 200, one external tank. But i usually only use centerline tank for the MLU, since you won't have ECM if you carry the centerline tank.
between 200 and 300, two wing tanks.
more than 300, use all three tanks. Again, I usually use two and assign a tanker for the C models in order to use ECM.

Also, sometimes I would purposely not carry any tanks to carry more weapons, and I would refuel either on the way to the target and/or on the way back. you can assign a tanker mission if none is near your flight path. And monitoring your fuel status while in flight is also a good habit to get into. well, those are just my rough estimates, and I'm sure the documents posted previously have much more details, but hope it was helpful anyway.