Fuel Planning

[Guest Jet]

I'm not much of a math wizard but can someone walk me through the typical fuel calculations one must do to plan for a trip.I fly the Commander on FS2002 exclusively. I use the trip planner within FS2002 and know a major compnent of trip planning is fuel estimates/calculation.I know I can watch the Fuel Totalizer do the calcs but I would like to know how to double check. Afterall, what about an electric failure, then what good is all this wiz bang stuff?? Thanks for everyone's help

[Guest]

Not much to it really. In real life, you would first look in the POH section 5 (Performance) and use the various charts to figure out what your fuel burn per hour is. (I usually round these figures up because the charts are designed for a brand new aircraft flying in perfect atmospheric conditions, and well, life is never perfect) You then use use that number and multiply it by the number of hours you're going to be at cruise altitude to find your total fuel burn for cruise. Then add that number to the number your POH says you will burn on climbout, add 30 minutes worth of fuel for a daytime VFR flight, 45 minutes for night VFR and you have your total. In the sim it's slightly different, just because you generally don't have a POH with the correct charts. In this case what i suggest you do is make your own chart. Figure out how much fuel your plane will burn at the various altitudes, power settings, and temperatures and write them down for future reference. Same thing for climbout planning. You will then know exactly (more or less) how much fuel you're going to burn.-Rob

[Guest Jet]

Thanks very much, I'll try it.Greg