FA-18 fuel management

[jlab58]

yesterday i had to stay home, so i decide to take a trip across atlantic ocean with a fa-18 of royal aussie air force. it's a 4.4 hrs trip from halifax ca. to lisbon portugal. thank god for A/P. the navigation book told me that i would need something like 3000 gal. fuel. the plane carry 1600, so i was expecting to refuel one time at mid-trip. ( just automatic refuel) when in fact i had to refuel almost every 25 min. or so. i was getting the message saying that the selectionned tank is going empty, do you want automatic refuel. there must be a better way.

[pfevrier]

Did you have your afterburners on the whole time?

[jlab58]

no i didn't i was going 75% all the way.

[B_7772]

Is there a possibility that you accidentally turned on Fuel Dump?

[Thai09]

Or maybe a leak somewhere?

Sorry, couldn't resist, I really need to try those kind of flights...

What do u do up there - there's only ocean to look at, or UFO's maybe?! :-?

[Fozzer]

...even in my wildest dreams, I cannot imagine spending time traversing thousands of miles of blue ocean nothing, for hours on end... .....

......ZZZZZzzzzz......

Paul...G-BPLF...FS 2004 and a nice spot of "Countryside".... ....!

.... ....!

[jlab58]

you bring a good book and it's ok.i don't think i drop the tanks, because i could see the fuel gauge going down slowly. i'm thinking more about some way to manage the fuel feed from one tank to another even if the fuel button was on feed mode. anyway it's just a sim so there's no arm done.

[BAW0343]

If you could "see" the fuel going down, you probably did have fuel dump on. "Fuel dump"

[jlab58]

when i say i was seeing fuel going down i meaned on ddi display on fuel page. is it possible that i switch drop fuel button on accidently, i suppose yes. and i was flying between 25-28,000 ft. that's ok. i'm still having fun. thanks.

[Thai09]

What about refueling in air from a KC 10 or KC 135 tanker?

Would be nice to have AI gas stations flying around!

Another solution: Stop over in Greenland and Iceland...

I have to try this myself, LOL!

Thanks for the inspiration jlab58. [smiley=thumbsup.gif]

[B_7772]

Also, just as a comment, when I was doing a flight in the F/A-18 this morning, the "Warning fuel tanks critically low" warning came on even though I had 50% fuel left.

[jlab58]

to add up to what boeingguy said, i flew fa-18 again tonight and i got my first low fuel message when the fuel was at 40%. you can see the numbers on the image i attached. when i took off i had full load around 10,000lbs, i climbed at 20,000 fts, then stabilise at 75% power. the endurance marker was around 50 min. to bingo. this means something like an hour for a full load.
http://img37.imageshack.us/my.php?image ... 731343.png

[idahosurge]

I can not tell you what the power or fuel flow was set to because I did not pay attention, but I have on numerous occasions flown the Accel FA18 from North Island NAS, San Diego CA to Mayport NAS, Jacksonville, FL nonstop.

Line up on the runway at North Island then in spot view with a good view of the tailpipe I would increase throttle until you could just see the afterburner color light up and leave it, do not accelerate beyond that limit, climb to 40,000' and head to Florida.  While climbing to 40,000' you need to make sure that your rate of climb is low enough so that you do not stall.  If I recall correctly I usually kept my TAS speed no lower than 450 while climbing, once I leveled off it would increase to 550 or whatever.  The main thing is once you set your thrust on the runway, leave it if you are just interested in how far you can go on a tank of gas so to speak.

Like I said, I have done this numerous times using that technique and I can make it without refueling along the way.  I use the same technique with the Aerosoft F16 and with two drop tanks I can also make it west coast to east coast.  With the Aerosoft F16 though you do have to increase your thrust after you get to 32,000' or so in order to make it to 40,000' and then throttle back once at 40,000'.

Regards,

Rod

[BAW0343]

[quote]I can not tell you what the power or fuel flow was set to because I did not pay attention, but I have on numerous occasions flown the Accel FA18 from North Island NAS, San Diego CA to Mayport NAS, Jacksonville, FL nonstop.

Line up on the runway at North Island then in spot view with a good view of the tailpipe I would increase throttle until you could just see the afterburner color light up and leave it, do not accelerate beyond that limit, climb to 40,000' and head to Florida.

[idahosurge]

I do not have unlimited fuel on, I can see the fuel level go down and when learning how to get the F16 coast to coast I ran out of fuel a lot until I got the techique down to get it from coast to coast.

Rod