A350 Fuel

1st Official Post

    Hello. Now that we can simulate the mass of the aircraft depending on which amount of fuel we put in it. I have some questions

    Firstly, is the fuel dump available? Like it actually makes the amount of fuel in the aircraft decrease?

    Secondly, how can I calculate how much fuel I need to be able to get from point A to B? I understand that kind of information would be in the flight plan. But to my understanding that is not simulated yet. So we could get a function that if we put a smaller amount than needed the aircraft triggers a warning message?


    Also regarding another a350 topic, is there going to be more sun shades as de one that is already in the aircraft?

    Thanks!!!

    • Official Post
    Quote from aguschimi04

    But the mass initial weight it is simulated right?

    The initial mass of the fuselage, wing, all fuel tanks, upper, middle, lower part of each landing gear, the mass of each engine, stabilizer (horizontal and vertical) are all simulated as individual masses, yes. This is what we do for each and every aircraft, which is why we can have things such as natural frequencies and proper gear damping, etc.

    Quote from Jet-Pack (IPACS)

    Currently fuel consumption or fuel mass decrease is not simulated in Aerofly FS. Once we add that in we will of course also consider adding fuel jettison.

    So for now the fuel is unlimited and you really don't ever have to worry about fuel in Aerofly FS, at least for the time being.

    However i noticed that all 3 airbus aircraft in the sim, despite having fixed FOB numbers, have a Fuel Used stat which does still increase. Fuel and balance settings would be really useful in the cases when flights are done which ‘use’ more fuel than the aircraft has on board. ie i took the a350 from manchester to orlando and it ‘used’ about 65,000kgs despite only having 48,000 on board.

    Quote from Jet-Pack (IPACS)

    The initial mass of the fuselage, wing, all fuel tanks, upper, middle, lower part of each landing gear, the mass of each engine, stabilizer (horizontal and vertical) are all simulated as individual masses, yes. This is what we do for each and every aircraft, which is why we can have things such as natural frequencies and proper gear damping, etc.

    sorry for not being able to explain myself. what i was meaning is in the a350 in particular, if changing the initial amount of fuel in tons changes how we feel the aircraft, like handling, minimum take off speed etc.

    Quote from aguschimi04

    sorry for not being able to explain myself. what i was meaning is in the a350 in particular, if changing the initial amount of fuel in tons changes how we feel the aircraft, like handling, minimum take off speed etc.

    It will because we dont have weight and balance, IPACS has to program every airplane to weigh less than MLW so theyre always light enough to not make a rough landing. The A35K’s Max Landing Weight is around 230-240,000 kilograms, which lines up with the 233,000kg gross weight we see at the bottom of the ECAM display

    • Official Post
    Quote from aguschimi04

    sorry for not being able to explain myself. what i was meaning is in the a350 in particular, if changing the initial amount of fuel in tons changes how we feel the aircraft, like handling, minimum take off speed etc.

    The numbers that you input do not change the physics in the real world or in Aerofly FS, no. That is just a hack done by third party developers for other simulators but we consider this to be quite unrealistic. The weights that you enter already affect what the software, especially the flight control computers are doing. So if you enter a high zero fuel mass for example the computed stall speeds shown on the PFD are going to be higher.

    To obtain the correct figures just double click the textboxes. Double click ZFW, double click ZFWCG, etc. until the all amber boxes on the MFD fuel&load page are filled in. Even when we end up adding changing fuel and weights we will try and keep this short cut available, so that you don't need to cross-check each number manually.

    but if you change the numbers it would ean that you have already changed the amount of weight an aircraft has. Like you can only do it in the ground after a refuel for example. Then the aircraft performance numbers wold need to change? I understand this is not implemented at this time, but if the game has the function of changing weights, that would be the expected behavior of the system? Also, do you know which numbers can make that when calculating landing performance for example the optimum config would be config3? ThankS!

    • Official Post

    The numbers you put into the computer don't match the real world mass of the aircraft either because average passenger weights are used and there is no actual weighing of each passenger and their hand luggage. It just has to fall within acceptable tolerance. So the weights in the computer are always just an approximation.

    Changing the numbers that input into the system only affects the computation but not the physics. If you input a very light weight and use a large thrust derate for takeoff then you end up over running the end of the runway on takeoff, has happened in the real world and can be simulated as well. If the inserted weights are too high then the plane might lift off before you expect it to or float longer on landing.

    The landing flap configuration is influenced by several factors such as runway length, required go around climb gradient, noise abatement, wear on the brakes, touchdown loads, stability in turbulence, risk kf tailstrike etc. On a long runway you can try both, flaps full or 3 in the A350 and I've also tested the Autoland with both.

    thanks for the clear explanation on the mass numbers on the aircraft computer. Regarding the landing config, do you have an example or maybe screenshot of your EFB where the optimum landing config would be config3? because like you said, i've already tested some possible configurations and never had the optimum landing as config3.