Short range of F-5E module compared to listed performance

This is a question not a complaint!.

Why is this aircraft's range in game not comparable to listed stats?.

Encyclopedia (in game) states range as 2112km with Nominal load

Military today lists Combat radius as 1400km

Global security Lists a more conservative 1055km with full fuel and 2 Sidewinders

We played a mission today with a 280km approx round trip and reasonably heavy load including 2 150 gal drop tanks and were landing on fumes.

Is there a way to better optimise flight to fuel ratio or is there an issue with the fuel usage?.

Range depends a lot upon the altitude and speed at which you are flying. It could explain the discrepancies that you have found. Other than that I don't really see what could justify such vastly different results.

Is there a way to better optimise flight to fuel ratio or is there an issue with the fuel usage?.

As Axelerator says altitude and speed are your 2 factors you can change well during flight. You can calculate your optimum cruise altitude and speed with the charts from the manual: https://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/files/1946738/

On the top right of each page you will find a little helper that tells you from where to enter the chart with what data and where to go from there.

I’m guessing that the OP was sanity checking with those more knowledgeable as to whether the current fuel burn rate and operational radius seems realistic.

Whilst we get that fuel burn is always dependent upon the usage profile, that level of disparity does seem rather large.

I just put three tanks on the F-5, took off, climbed to about 20,000 feet & a bit over 300 Knots.

I'm not patient, so I did it at 11x normal speed - which meant very shaky and very zig-zag, which will have cut down on the achieved range.

I flew to 5000 lb of fuel (a tight bingo) by which time I was off the map so I couldn't read the distance in sim, but putting the start and end coordinates into google maps it seems I'd covered 1,898 km by then.

I just put three tanks on the F-5, took off, climbed to about 20,000 feet & a bit over 300 Knots.

 

I'm not patient, so I did it at 11x normal speed - which meant very shaky and very zig-zag, which will have cut down on the achieved range.

 

I flew to 5000 lb of fuel (a tight bingo) by which time I was off the map so I couldn't read the distance in sim, but putting the start and end coordinates into google maps it seems I'd covered 1,898 km by then.

Thanks for the info. What sort of ascent profile did you take. I was finding it hard to make altitude in the mission we were playing. I'm a newb to this plane though and thenk there was maybe a more efficient climb routine.

The answers to your questions can be found here

https://forums.eagle.ru/showpost.php?p=3469702&postcount=3

and here

https://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=167127

Thanks for the info. What sort of ascent profile did you take. I was finding it hard to make altitude in the mission we were playing. I'm a newb to this plane though and thenk there was maybe a more efficient climb routine.

An easy and efficient way is to accelerate to a certain IAS ( e.g. 300kn) and then start a military thrust climb keeping that speed. With altitude your mach speed will increase. When you reached your mach speed (e.g. 0.6) you want to cruise at, you hold that instead of the IAS until you reached your cruise altitude.

Red, thank you!! I love my little knife fighters. You just gave me the final piece to my puzzle!!!!