Fuel usage imbalance

[ravagetalon]

Hey all,

I'm still fairly new to the A2A Skyhawk (maybe 8 or 9 hours flown in it). I've been noticing that fuel tends to drain faster from the right tank than the left.

I continually note that the right tank is always between 0.5 gallons and 1 gallon emptier than the left after a decent length flight.

Is this normal?

I apologize if this belongs in the tech support forum.

[Caldemeyn]

The fuel usage tends to change with how you fly, how often and in which direction you turn, becouse fuel moves in the tanks.

[ravagetalon]

I'll have to do some testing. This is just something I've noticed in my normal adventuring. I don't tend to turn one way or the other, however. I'll report back with what I find.

[EnDSchultz]

This is entirely normal behavior, and in fact it can be quite stark. I remember one of the 172's I trained in developed a pretty crazy fuel imbalance. It seemed like every time I did a preflight with that plane, one tank would be way depleted whereas the other was always nearly full. The difference was so dramatic, I elected one time to do startup, taxi, and run-up on the fuller tank alone just to make sure there was enough fuel flow from it to run the engine by itself. Everything worked fine, but it illustrates the point that this happens with gravity fed tanks.

[Lewis - A2A]

Yes, thanks I Accu-sim we are able to turn off the generic modelling and replace or compliment with our Accu-sim simulation engine. In this case it's for the correct modelling of fuel useage with the 172's fuel delivery system, including the normal imbalances + it all being dynamic and dependant in the how the aircraft is kept and flown.

Thanks,
Lewis


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[AKar]

I remember one of the 172's I trained in developed a pretty crazy fuel imbalance. It seemed like every time I did a preflight with that plane, one tank would be way depleted whereas the other was always nearly full.

Related to this behavior is that some Cessnas are quite prone to 'gravity transfer' the fuel from higher wing to the other one when parked also. And of course, the higher wing gets lighter in the process and rises even further. This is why the fuel tank selector(s) should be set to OFF when airplane is parked. I'm not sure how critical the 172R is in this aspect, nor if that is simulated in Accusim.

-Esa

[Oracle427]

It is bad when the fuel also keeps draining out onto the ground through the left wing vent.