Good morning,

I'm trying to do some ferry flights with the Twin Otter to Antarctica. The twotter has 4 fuel tanks - Center1, Center2, RightTip, and LeftTip. The two center tanks are the default tanks. No switch is needed to use those. The two tip tanks do, however, need to be turned on to work - found that one out the hard way.

I have added to ferry tanks - LeftAux and RightAux - to the aircraft config file. Do I need to add a switch to turn on the auxiliary tanks or will they activate automatically?

Thank you.

colin

24 minutes ago, rowcoach said:

Good morning,

I'm trying to do some ferry flights with the Twin Otter to Antarctica. The twotter has 4 fuel tanks - Center1, Center2, RightTip, and LeftTip. The two center tanks are the default tanks. No switch is needed to use those. The two tip tanks do, however, need to be turned on to work - found that one out the hard way.

I have added to ferry tanks - LeftAux and RightAux - to the aircraft config file. Do I need to add a switch to turn on the auxiliary tanks or will they activate automatically?

I would not be confident they will work at all. I would have thought the aircraft model would need to be written to make explicit use of the aux tanks. Of course the ESP fuel system may be a monolithic object, in which case everything is managed within, but the fact that the Twin Otter's tip tanks need to be switched on suggests otherwise. I guess the simplest way is to try it out!

Thanks for the reply, Mark. Just tried it out in the sim. Set the 2 centre tanks to 0 and filled both auxiliary tanks. Tried to start the engines and nothing happened. The two centre tanks have a boost pump that needs to be turn on in order for the engines to start. Given that my ferry tanks have no pump or switch or anything like that, it makes sense that it shouldn't work.

I've read a few posts about code that needs to be written as well as editing the SDK, but I have no idea where to even begin with that.

Possibly a program like AirEd could be used to enlarge the existing tanks, which would eliminate the need to find a way to switch to them.

3 hours ago, rowcoach said:

Thanks for the reply, Mark. Just tried it out in the sim. Set the 2 centre tanks to 0 and filled both auxiliary tanks. Tried to start the engines and nothing happened. The two centre tanks have a boost pump that needs to be turn on in order for the engines to start. Given that my ferry tanks have no pump or switch or anything like that, it makes sense that it shouldn't work.

I've read a few posts about code that needs to be written as well as editing the SDK, but I have no idea where to even begin with that.

Although perhaps not realistic, I think you can just edit the aircraft.cfg file to increase the capacity of the existing tanks. After doing so and restarting the sim, you should see the increased capacity under the sim's Fuel and Payload option. This has worked with other aircraft, so worth a try.  You can also increase the aircraft's allowed Gross Weight in the aircraft.cfg file if appropriate.

Al

Edited July 24, 20205 yr by ark

16 hours ago, rowcoach said:

Thanks for the reply, Mark. Just tried it out in the sim. Set the 2 centre tanks to 0 and filled both auxiliary tanks. Tried to start the engines and nothing happened. The two centre tanks have a boost pump that needs to be turn on in order for the engines to start. Given that my ferry tanks have no pump or switch or anything like that, it makes sense that it shouldn't work.

I've read a few posts about code that needs to be written as well as editing the SDK, but I have no idea where to even begin with that.

Hello Colin,

a while ago I made a freeware app for that, PayloadManagerX. Since then it has acquired many other features, but the initial purpose was to add ferry tanks to jet fighters. But it admittedly isn't as sophisticated as what you are asking. I didn't implement additional switches etc., just another "fuel source".

Best regards