Hello.
I’m quite a newb in the department of planes knowledge. I’ve done quite a bit of flight simulation years ago, mainly on a Cessna 172, but here you’re seeing a lot of planes and you manage almost everything about them.
Especially in career mode where you have to check/alter you flight plan, set the fuel quantities, and such.
And about that fuel consumption, the game gives you info about your craft (very little info, but still, there are some), including the fuel consumption
For a Cessna 172 it says 6 gallons per hour
For a DHC-2, it says 3 gallons per hour
And spoiler alert (not), these values are very very wrong. I’ve calculated the C172 uses about 10 gallons per hour (depending on the exact RPM you use, and the wind, etc…), but 6 gph seems way too optimistic, or you may attain it if you are in full eco mode (and flying at 80kt TAS).
For the DHC-2, I took a mission that gave me a DHC-2 40% fueled up for a 1h45 flight, and I had to inject more fuel mid-flight, because the engine was deprived of fuel. Turns out I used 42 gallons of fuel to do that flight, which amounts to 28gph (That seems a lot, I may have mismanaged something).
So, this leaves me with two options :
- Either the numbers in-game are wrong (I know it is for the C172)
- Or I don’t know how to uses these planes at all (possible for the DHC-2, that was my first long trip with it)
Can you help me sort it out (and it would be top notch if you could tell me where to find good fuel consumption numbers)?
Thanks in advance
Do not believe the fuel consumption numbers. Many planes use double for a mission. This is a bug in Career mode.
What you must do is set up a control/switch to give you fuel mid flight. Go to your peripheral that you use to set switches and in the settings put ADD in the search bar for that peripheral and set a switch to “Add Fuel”. You can then use this mid mission flight so you do not run out of fuel.
Fuel consumption is way off on almost anything. Also for a long time I used the auto mixture feature in the game and it’s off by varying degrees in almost everything too. For a while I went under the assumption the flight model was just bad.. Nope. It’s the mixture. Almost everything uses the fuel it should if you mix it yourself.
Very little of what the sim tells you about planes is correct. Usually the range and speed aren’t correct either.
Yeah, I’ve set a key binding for that, since I may run out of fuel unexpectedly. But I’d rather avoid doing this and fuel up correctly my plane beforehand, that’s why I’m asking for guidance
What do you mean by “auto-mixture”? Is that an help in game to set up the mixture automatically? Because I’m setting up the mixture myself.
Really, everything the sim says about planes is wrong in some manner? I don’t understand how they can be so oblivious to that. They are doing a simulation about plane, they don’t hand out manual, and they give wrong info, and they think it’s ok…
Back in the days, I’ve played Sierra ProPilot. The thing had a several hundred pages manual covering for the most part the basics of flying. I’ve read that for hours before actually start the game.
Well, I guess it’s the price of modernity…
Yea I dunno. The planes usually are fairly accurate so at least the people making them are doing it right. Why the people putting that info in the menu can’t get it right is beyond me.
The stand-out ones for me were the P-51s. They all say 298 nm. Why not 300? Some have different tank set ups yet they’re still 298. All of them that I tested go much further. They have some fascination with 298 nm I think. All the T-6’s were 298 also. Now in FS2024 they’re still 298. The Goose is 298. The Pitts Specials are all 298.
Then we have the Orbx Avenger that goes 5600. Supposedly. But that’s not on MS lol