[REPORTED] No Drop Tank on Load out editor.

Will there be a drop tank available in future?

Also possibly a bomb?

The Normandy Missions would benefit from both features I believe. Especially in the early phases when Spits flew round trips from Britain.

Cheers

David

Yes, it have read somewhere that external tanks and bombs are planned, same as a clipped wing variant.

Sooner this happens, the better... Spit has too short a range unless doing very local missions from Normandy itself

We are going to be needing drop tanks for serious escort missions. The Spit's range is not really a problem if you watch your engine RPM settings and boosts, but it will become one once you need to climb to 25k feet to protect and escort those bombers.

Not to mention any combat power time you'd need. If you do any sort of medium range escort right now, even at lower altitudes, running into trouble gives you very little time to fight before you need to run for a friendly place to put down.

Possibly the endurance is still to be tweaked for the final version of the Spitfire. Looking at the lua, the av fuel consumption in the Spitty is 0.302 kg/s so for 247 kgs of fuel I believe it's too high. Not sure if this number is only for the AI or just a mission planning number for the editor.

I understood Spitfire IXs had about an hour and a half on internal fuel at cruising speeds of about 400 kph for a range of around 600-700 kms. The lua actually quotes 1015km for max range for the Spitfire for the ai which sounds about right for when drop tanks are used or perhaps the ferry range.

So based on about 90 mins endurance on internal tanks I would have thought this would mean an average fuel consumption of about 0.04-0.06 kg/s instead. No expert for sure so probably someone will correct me and there is likely much more to the calculation or this number in the lua doesn't have any real effect and it is one of the engine numbers instead that dictates range.

The 247 kgs of fuel is correct based on http://www.streamline-ops.com/en/info/fuel_weight_conversion_tables/ and a factor of 0.72 to convert from litres to kg for avgas and what I have seen for Spitfire IXe fuel capacities and so maybe it's just that the consumption numbers are too high at the moment. I know if I build a mission where an AI takes off from the coast in England and tries to reach the beach head area they turn back when they get about 3/4 of the way there which I believe happens because they think they don't have the range. I don't that this was the case in r/l but again I could easily be wrong about that too.

I have crossed the channel and returned easily. The AI may not have our keen sense of proper engine management. ;)

The pilot's manual states that for more economical cruise you should never be above +7lb of boost; automatic mixture control means that at this and below you are automatically in weak mixture setting.

However even at 2650rpm/+7lb boost (max continuous) you will burn fuel at @80gal/hour. With the Spits 85gal tank that would give a little over an hour with no combat.

It leaps to 105gal per hour at 2850rpm/+12lb(!) and 115gal per hour at WEP!

You can bring the figure down to 45gal per hour by reducing to 2000rpm/0lb boost.

So economy climb from England at 2650rpm/+7lb boost and 160IAS.

Once at height level off and cruise at 2000rpm/0lb boost @ ~210IAS.

Once in enemy territory consider moving up to max continuous (2650rpm/+7lb boost) again.