Trident Fuel Usage

[Vc Ten]

Hi All
Not sure if this is the best place to post this but hey ho
Never really flown the Trident 2 before Flew the T3 a lot before joining the va And recently trained on the Trident 3 for the va.
Flew to malta this afternoon in the T2 and noticed that the fuel usage from the wing tanks becomes imbalanced over a period. Shut off the port tanks and ran from center tank and Stbd tank. When centre tank ran empty port and centre engine stopped!! switched port tanks back on and restart ok Still having to switch port tanks off and on throughout flight to keep things balanced Its as if the fuel plumbings wrong After the end of flight checked out the T3 and the fuel works ok as it should. Anyone else experienced these problems in FSX ??

[DaveB]

Hello Mate

Not flown any of our jets live on the VA in FSX.. in fact I don't have any of our jets IN FSX I'll drag one over and have a look though. Hang in there In the meantime, I don't think this has been flagged before. Back in 20

EDIT: I've just flown it up to FL310 and all tanks remained equal mate. Can't think of any good reason for an imbalance off the top of my head. Are you sure the fuel was loaded equally to start off with
ATB
DaveB

[Vc Ten]

Hiya Mate
Cheers for testing it out Looks like I have a problem
Yes they started equal but as if one engine runs from one wing and the other 2 from the other wing. Not sure what the centre tank does The T2 uses the same panel as the T3 but has obvious differences so not sure how it achieves that. On reinstalling FSX I dragged back the old DMFS folder so that is the same as it was before the reinstall Problem is because i never flew the T2 I dont know if it was ok before or not. Think I will reinstall the panel as a first step
ATB
Dale

[DaveB]

Hello Mate

I'll run her again today with less fuel in the outers at takeoff.. the brief test yesterday was with her full. I'm sure Ben has flown the T2's many times in FSX and hasn't reported a problem before

I may revisit the T2 in FS9 to see what happens with the fuel pumps. I tried turning the outer pumps off in FSX yesterday and the inners shut too although the engines remained lit. Can't remember how FSA fuels the tanks I'm afraid The answer is out there.. just a matter of finding it
ATB
DaveB

[MALTBY D]

There's not much fancy fuel system coding on the Trident models. Nearly all standard FS.
Only thing I can think of is the APU. If you're running the APU it may take from one side, can't remember now. Could it be that?
The T3 & T2 share the same panel, the only difference being the T3 booster engine.
The APU is set as engine 4, always restricted to idle in the code. But on the T3 the booster also makes use of engine 4, allowing preset thrust levels.
So I guess there is some scope for a difference between T3 & T2 in FSX.

Just check that the fuel sections in aircraft.cfg. All but the max fuel levels should be the same in your T2 & T3.
This is what I've got in the T2...
[fuel]
Center1= 2.000, 0.000, 0.000, 2561.000, 0.000
LeftMain= 2.000, 15.000, 0.000, 2561.000, 0.000
RightMain= 2.000, -15.000, 0.000, 2561.000, 0.000
fuel_type=2.000000
number_of_tank_selectors=2
electric_pump=1

DM

[DaveB]

Hi DM

That's the same as my fuel section mate. I don't use the APU though.. I'm guessing Dale may I'm still using the old code for the model too.. not the modded version

ATB
DaveB

[Vc Ten]

Thanks for replies Looks like i posted in the right place
Right , update from this mornings work.
T2 and T3 both behave the same I was wrong when I though the two variants behaved differently
Without APU running:-
1/Center tank on-Wing tanks go down evenly Regardless of content of fuel in centre tank
2/Center tank off- Port tank empties quicker to the ratio of 2/3 - 1/3
3/ with centre tank on but empty :-
Close stbd tanks Engine 3 stops
Close port tanks Engine 1 and 2 stop : This is the problem I had yesterday while having the port tank switched off to balance the fuel ( I'd had the centre tank switched off in the climb initially causing the imbalance) the center tank ran empty causing the 2 engine failures

Now I have been having problems with the CLS 747 after the FSX reinstall, one being only drawing fuel from one tank. The CLS forum was helpful in that posters have found that on installing Acceleration you must have a default a/c loaded which has at least 2 tanks, both which must be selected.
I normally load up fsx with the microlight as default, but now have changed to the cessna which has 2 tanks By selecting both tanks, this has cured the problem with the 747 which now draws fuel from all tanks on startup. But on retesting the trident the same problem is still there
I have done a full install of the original zip file so aircraft should be as per standard (load slowly original cabs) but no different, so loaded back modded panel folder (cabdir cabs) and modded panel cfg with civa INS and Frasers Viscount's Decca
May next try different default startup models to try to find one which suits better
ATB
Dale

[TSR2]

Hi Chaps,

Up to my eyes with work, but I'll give this a go tonight.

[Vc Ten]

Cheers Ben
Will get myself back from Malta in the meantime, watching the fuel gauges more closely this time
ATB
Dale

[DaveB]

Hi Dale

You are having fun aren't you Loading the sim with the default Cessna IS and always has been, a must.. regardless of sim version I know that some load with the Beech 58 as it's mildly more complex but I stick to the Cessna.

So, as I understand it.. the original cab is giving the same problem as the cabdir set AND.. the T3 is acting up the same. I've pulled the T2 from FSX as I don't use it but the T3 is still there. Now.. I KNOW Ben has put plenty of hours in on the T3 in FSX I'll give the T3 a go now. I was running tests on the Mossie but having changed a setting in ASA's weather and finding the Mossie unflyable after.. I tried to change the setting back and refresh the weather.. where upon it spit FSX out half way between the Scillies and GUE. Piece of shit!

ATB
DaveB