Fuel Inbalance indication and poorly trimmed aircraft.
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Every time i get into the pit im noticing this,
looks like a differential of about 800lbs.
Dash says delta should not exceed 600.
Should i try to balance it in flight or is it normal. -
My guess is : you are in the F-16D in the training mission.
Its normal, the D fuel tanks are indeed imbalanced because of the extra space taken by the 2nd crew member. The front tank is smaller.
The “bug” here is that the D pit should have custom needles in the fuel gauge to take this into account.
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What model aircraft are you flying?
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If you like you can balance, just use properly the engine feed knob but remember to place on “both” position at the right moment or it will flame out. I suggest to do it especially before an air-to-air refuel so to do not flame-out before the contact and discover you have enough fuel on the front tank while the rear was sucked dry. I place on both before landing, air-to-air refuel and once the total is below 2000 lbs. I don’t leave the knob in rear or front position in this kind of situations.
It is up to you, in my opinion.
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If you like you can balance, just use properly the engine feed knob but remember to place on “both” position at the right moment or it will flame out. I suggest to do it especially before an air-to-air refuel so to do not flame-out before the contact and discover you have enough fuel on the front tank while the rear was sucked dry. I place on both before landing, air-to-air refuel and once the total is below 2000 lbs. I don’t leave the knob in rear or front position in this kind of situations.
It is up to you, in my opinion.
If you are flying the D model then doing the above will unbalance the a/c making it nose heavy. There is a BUG in BMS where the C model gauge is used and due to the smaller front tank on the D model the gauge reads incorrectly.
The fuel management system on the F-16 is quite good and if you ever find yourself in the situation of having to manually balance the tanks then you really need to be asking what is wrong!!!
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The one-seat models (A, C) and two-seat models (B, D) of the F-16 have slightly different fuel gauges in real life. The white “you’re OK” arc is made in each to show acceptable positions of the needles. In Falcon we get the C-cockpit (and gauge) for both models so the white warning arc shows a problem when there isn’t one. I just read this today so the rule in the two-seater is to have no more than 1350 lbs. in the rear system over the front (moves the center of gravity too far back).
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thanks for all the quick replies….
Only notice it flying the D model, and does not cause any handling issues, so all good.
Cheers.
