Question Regarding Fuel/External Tanks

[Roadburner426]

I was flying the Razorback today for the first time with the 3 75gal external tanks. I went and checked the fuel and payload page and seen all the tanks weren't at 100% so I took the liberty of making them 100% (this would prove to be bad later on). So I took off like normal and of course she was heavier and had more drag, but when I went to swap over to the external tank in flight the motor noise instantly faded away and was like she was running on fumes. So I swapped back to the main tank and the motor came back to life. I went to the fuel and payload page and for the left aux tank it had a -3.6%. Yes I mean negative 3.6%. I have never seen that before. I have been playing around on the ground for awhile and I seen in the fuel settings that it will just load up whatever fuel on the fuel and payload page that I am supposed to have. I do not think this is a problem with the aircraft, but a problem with FSX itself and the way it is interacting with your Accu-sim coding. I am just wondering if other people have had anything like this happen to them on their flights? Just as a note I haven't had any issues with using the planes actual load manager that came with it. Just with the FSX fuel/payload one.

[lonewulf47]

Well, the question is: why don't you use the fuel and payload manager which is supplied upon pressing SHIFT-4? It is GENERALLY (not only on A2A models) a completely wrong approach to fuel settings when you use the default fuel and payload settings of FSX if there is a custom fuel and payload manager. The only thing that you can achieve - and you give a good example for that - ist to screw up completely the fuel system. Of course the contents on a specific station (say an underwing station) does not show 100% if you use a 75 GAL tank when the maximum capacity on that station would be 150 GAL. Don't forget that the default fuel system of FSX can't cope with variable tank size.

The custom fuel and payload manager is a real time program that overrides the default FSX settings. To keep things straight and level never touch those FSX default fuel and weight figures and use the Thunderbolt's custom manager using SHIFT-4. Btw, it's definitely by far more practical and convenient The famous percentage of FSX is just irrelevant for the Thunderbolt although - haven't checked it yet - it might show 100% if you load all possible fuel. But again: it's not important. Just forget this figure.

Oskar

[Roadburner426]

Is about what I figured. Is just a bad habit I have I suppose. The Stratocruiser doesn't have external tanks so I've never had this type of problem before. But when I load up the 3 150gal tanks it does show 100% fuel load for everything. So I just load her up with the 150's to make my refueling easier, lol. I am just so use to checking the FSX one and I didn't see the 100%'s there and thought it was odd so I maxed them all out on the 75gal tanks. It all makes perfect sense now though.