Simviation Forums

I recently downloaded for FSX the Convair B-36H after watching the movie "Strategic Air Command". On my first attempt at a takeoff I was unable to get the beast off the ground before running out of runway, and I had picked a field with a long runway. When next I tried I discovered that the person who had designed the package had overloaded the aircraft to the tune of 100,000 lbs of fuel pushing the weight way above max gross. After changing the fuel load to keep the plane below max gross weight it took off well before the end of the same runway I had used before.

OK, maybe I should have thought to check the weight and balance before attempting a takeoff but some of us aren't as serious about doing preflight checks as others are. I use FSX for enjoyment and not to simulate in every detail an actual flight. And this wasn't the first aircraft that I have found to be over weight as is.

I have also come across lots of aircraft over weight.

Anthin

Modlerbob wrote:OK, maybe I should have thought to check the weight and balance before attempting a takeoff but some of us aren't as serious about doing preflight checks as others are. I use FSX for enjoyment and not to simulate in every detail an actual flight. And this wasn't the first aircraft that I have found to be over weight as is.

I'm with you, Kick the tires & light the fires! Done enough of the serious stuff in real life, here I'm all about the pure enjoyment of boring holes in the sky.

Copy & Paste from one aircraft to another in the design process sometimes doesn't work !

I've had to go in a change the weight on numerous aircraft as they were way too heavy, not only fuel, but freight & passengers too.

who knows where they copied the configurations from ?

an often over looked area, you could day.

OK, for the B-36 I went into the aircraft.cfg file and found this:

[fuel]
fuel_type=2.000000
number_of_tank_selectors=1
LeftMain=0.000000,0.000000,0.000000,20000.000000,0.000000
LeftAux=0.000000,-89.166667,0.000000,6795.000000,0.000000
RightMain=0.000000,0.000000,0.000000,20000.000000,0.000000
RightAux=0.000000,89.166667,0.000000,6795.000000,0.000000
electric_pump=0

I have no idea what to change , if anything. And if this isn't where you change the default fuel load where do I look?

Modlerbob wrote:OK, for the B-36 I went into the aircraft.cfg file and found this:

[fuel]
fuel_type=2.000000
number_of_tank_selectors=1
LeftMain=0.000000,0.000000,0.000000,20000.000000,0.000000
LeftAux=0.000000,-89.166667,0.000000,6795.000000,0.000000
RightMain=0.000000,0.000000,0.000000,20000.000000,0.000000
RightAux=0.000000,89.166667,0.000000,6795.000000,0.000000
electric_pump=0

I have no idea what to change , if anything. And if this isn't where you change the default fuel load where do I look?

I copied this from the FSX Aircraft Container SDK;


The fuel tank capacity would be the entries I've marked in Bold type in your example;

LeftMain=0.000000,0.000000,0.000000,20000.000000,0.000000
LeftAux=0.000000,-89.166667,0.000000,6795.000000,0.000000
RightMain=0.000000,0.000000,0.000000,20000.000000,0.000000
RightAux=0.000000,89.166667,0.000000,6795.000000,0.000000

Please bear in mind that the flight model of an aircraft like the B-36 would be impossible to simulate accurately in FS. The FS flight dynamics are limited to conventional aircraft with a maximum of 4 engines of the same type. This would be further complicated by the 4 additional jet engines on the B-36H. I'm no authority on this aircraft but understand that these were added mainly as take-off boosters.

I found this which might help with the actual fuel capacity of the B-36. Note that it does not include fuel tanks for the extra jet engines on the H model.

OK the numbers I posted were fuel tank capacities. So where does the default initial load get entered?

Update, when I changed the fuel tank capacities to the numbers on the chart Hagar provided adding tanks 1, 2 & 3 to 10,527gal and the aux. tanks to 4788gal the total loaded weight came in below max. gross and the plane took off in less than 10,000 ft.

Thanks Hagar