Simviation Forums

Just a quick question about fuel calculations on FS.

Please can someone give me advice on how much fuel I shoudl load into my aircraft before a flight.

Generally, I create a flight using he Flight Planner and then get an indication of the fuel required from the Nav Log. (Then add a bit more for taxiing, holding etc.)

I'm sure this is not the correct way of going about things. I often find that I'm running low on fuel beofre I get to my destination and hence unrealistically having to "top up" the tanks from the fuel menu in order to complete the flight!!

Any advice would be great!!

Jezz, the technique you are talking about should work just fine.
What kind of planes are you flying? With props you need to adjust the fuel flow and prop(s), and this is the most common cause of this problem.

Ozzy

To conserve fuel, don't fly with throttles at 100%

chances are, like stated above, you are pushing faster than the planner allows and burning too much fuel.
not knowing what aircraft you are flying your altitude will have something to do with it as well, along with how fast you climb and such.  Might I suggest that you make note of how much you the planner reccomends, and then how much you have to add. this will give you a percentage to add to the planners solution so that you can fly your "style" in relative saftey

If you have a look at the planner it will tell you you will
be travelling at max. cruise at all times and altitudes-
mine does anyway! Not realistic. Once you have worked out all your prop settings etc as suggested before add in weather and all other sundries(like 3 goarounds) add 20%. Basically,get a feel for what your flying and what it needs,monitor your flight all the way and  you'll develop a quick sense of whats required. Same as your letdowns,
once you're in the groove you'll nail it by instinct. To do
that, get out and fly the wings of it. Look and learn what the gauges are telling you and build hours.

People tend to get used to using auto mixture, and then when they pump up their realism settings to full they end up sapping power by running full rich and full throttle at higher altitudes.  Make sure you lean out your mixture for cruise, it lowers fuel cons and actually raises performance . . . listen to your engine for optimum setting . . .

And hey, keep things as real as they get by never topping off in the air.  If you get low, you better find a suitable airport with a fueling station before you continue your trip . . .

This might honestly be the only stupid question ever asked, but:

Fueling station?  Is there a way I can taxi my aircraft up to a certain place on the tarmac and get someone to "fill 'er up"?  Or do you just mean using the fuel pull-down?

The yellow squares at airports are what they are talking about, pull into one of those, turn off your engines and after up to a minute you should be refueled! Hope that helps

Oh my God!

Where does it say this in the FS software?!  I'll have to take a look at that.  I never really payed attention to the yellow squares, thinking they might have something to do with helos, which I almost never fly.

Thanx for the info!  I'm off to run my tanks dry right now!

WOW! I never knew that either. I always just land my helos there and for the most part ignore them when i'm flying anything else. I;ve gotta give it a go

It is probably true that a lot of folks don't know about the yellow squares.  I've been flying FS off and on since version 1 (yep! Still got the old manuals).  Somewhere along the way, they introduced this feature and made a big fuss.  But, since FS 98, I think, it has pretty much been taken for granted in the manuals etc and probably lots of folks who got into FS since then just ignored the yellow squares.  

HOWEVER this is one of my pet peeves:  they've never really done much with this feature.  When you sit there, after a few seconds, you're instantly full!  If you don't want all that fuel, you need to go into the Airplane menu and adjust. Thus, there is little point in going to the yellow squares, since you have to do it manually anyway.  I'd like to be able to specify how much full I want to take on.   Ah well...

You don't need to shut your engines off, I find setting my parking brakes does it

lol, never tried that

lol.  The ever-clever Tipster just invented Drive-thru fueling.  Watch out McDonalds!

 Is there an easy way to find the refueling squares without driving all over the airport?