2 Stage Afterburner

Machinery of War Discussion Aircraft
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With suggestions temporarily disabled, im creating this post here for further feedback/ideas and when suggestions open up, i’ll recompile and submit an official suggestion over there

Britain tag set as it would not let me submit a forum topic as “aircraft” generally and it required a nation to be selected

As it currently stands, there are several jets in game that have “functional” 2 stage afterburner. Such as the F-14 and Tornado, but to enter first stage afterburner is more of a chore than it is usually worth and this is mostly due to the lack of functionality within both the controls and within the interface itself.

To enter the first stage of reheat, you need to very gently advance the throttle past 100% and just into WEP. If you go to far, you’ll enter second stage reheat, currently the only way of truly knowing if you are in first stage reheat is by monitoring fuel usage. This stage provides less thrust but also consumes far less fuel, allowing for a compromise when travelling greater distances.

So suggestions for change:

First, update the UI to better display the 2 stages of afterburner. This could be as simple as WEP1 / WEP2

Secondly, modify the gap between each mode, increasing the difference between 100%/WEP1 and between WEP1/WEP2

Thirdly, add options to customise the deadzone between each stage, I’d personally also like an increase in the gap between 100% and WEP. Currently its like going from 100% to 101% needed to enter WEP1 and then only 103ish% to enter WEP2. Being able to customise this margin to have whatever you’d like would be great, especially for those using HOTAS. This way you could have 100%-110% be Non-WEP, and 110+% be WEP. Giving a far larger range to set a throttle before changing modes.

In the future it would also be good to get visual changes to the exterior of the aircraft and any appropriate audible changes too.

Any feedback/ideas for improvement would be appriceated

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The Mirage 2000-5F is pretty cool for this because your actual fuel flow in kg/min is in the cockpit with digital readout so it’s easy to know if i’m in full reheat or not
That being said it’s not a 2step thing, from what I’ve seen if dry is 150kg/min, 2nd stage is 300, and 1st stage can be anything from 220 through 280 (i’m just tapping W to get in 1st stage)

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Yep, I fly using a HOTAS, so i’ve got finer control than most, but proper defined margins would definetly help with consistancy

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I’m guessing from the complete lack of UI for this feature that it isn’t really intended.

Doesn’t mean it shouldn’t exist though, plenty of planes IRL have multiple afterburner/reheat modes/stages too, so we should have the option properly supported.

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I first noticed this with the release of the Viggen. Here’s the old forum post. PSA - JA37 Has Two Stage Afterburner! - Sweden - War Thunder - Official Forum

Anyway, what you’re seeing here isn’t necessarily what you think you’re seeing. It’s not just a few aircraft that can do this. It’s literally every aircraft with an afterburner, including the F104A or even J29D, which definitely didn’t have an adjustable afterburner.

Additionally, it’s not just one or two “stages”. It’s the entire range from 101% to 110% (max) throttle, with each level being a smooth linear increase from the one before. You can cruise around at 103% or 106% etc so long as you have fine enough throttle control, and you’ll get the resultant increase in thrust and fuel consumption. I’ve tested this with WTRTI and verified the thrust and fuel consumption levels.

Honestly, the way it works, and especially with it being available for literally any afterburning aircraft, this feels more like a bug than an intentional design decision. They really need to implement proper multi-stage afterburners and integrate it into the UI, and once they do that, fix this bug so that it’s only available for aircraft that historically had that capability.

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Interesting, thank you, I’ve never noticed it before as it hasnt been till the Tornado Gr1 where fuel (In SB) was a significant consideration.

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If you are flying with Mouse and Keyboard, you can bind the throttle additionally to your scroll-wheel. (AB, RB)

If you are at 100% Throttle (via keyboard bind) you actually can easily scroll step - by - step through the stages.

Works as well in Sim with a proper Stick and Throttle (Virpil, VKB a.s.o.) by assigning special buttons in their software.

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This is how it works, just want to add that you can also do increments of 0.5% or even smaller depending on the sensitivity of your thrust control (mine is mouse wheel for precision and “w/s” for faster input between 0 and full WEP.)

This means that you essentially can control afterburner “stages” in a linear way between 101%+ and 110%, while the maximum non-afterburner throttle is exactly 101%.

The only problem we have is that we can’t lower throttle from 110% to 109% and so on, because it immediately goes to 100% if you are anywhere above 101%

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