You’ll probably find that you retain/regain energy a little faster.
Its why I really want more external fuel tanks added. They allow you to run less internal fuel but have enough fuel for most of the match, but you can ditch them when you need to.
Harrier:
Min vs Max fuel, all other conditions identical:
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God i sure do love talking to online strangers who are probably 30 year old men at 11:30 at night
Yeah, going from min to max fuel would probably make a load of difference, but if you are debating between taking 10 minutes or 15 minutes, out of 1 hour max, then you’ll probably not notice it hugely.
But I wish you could adjust the stat card page to display stats both at different alts and fuel loads
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well, that is a good evidence of fuel weight in WT
Yup, and one of the main times I really pay attention to how much fuel I’ve got left (besides just not running out fuel and crashing). If I try to VTOL land on a Carrier in SB and I’ve got too much fuel, I either need to ditch my stores or go burn some more fuel and try again later (I really wish we could fuel dump)
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You forgot the “lives in his mom’s basement part”
yes
How very insightful
When I 1v1 dogfight I notice a difference. Not too much, but it is still an easy scapegoat for when I mess up my first couple of rounds. “Oh jeesh, I forgot I had my fuel up for Realistic”
ate a R-24 in my F-100 today, feeling lucky
Talk about an uptier
yeah it suck facing radar missiles in my succ aircraft
Welcome to War Thunder, where we all have to suffer missiles since they refuse to give us a dogfight mode.
Yes, it affects the performance.
You can easily check it is custom missions.
i can live with IR guilded but having
ZERO CHAFFS
ZERO FLARES
ZERO MANUVERABILITY AT HIGH SPEED
ZERO COUNTER MEASURE
FOUR AIM-9Bs(as of now)
ONE HUNDRED PERCENT UPTIER
It does.
At its simplest, it affects mass.
For most propeller planes, rule of thumb is that 100% fuel corresponds to around 10-20% more mass.
e.g: Spitfire F Mk IX goes from 2960 to 2960 + 289. F4U-4 goes from 4697 to 4697+639. yak-3 2263 to 2263+270, bf109f4 2457 to 2457+296, A6M2 from 1864 to 1864+385 and so on.
What impact does this have?
An aircraft generates energy the higher its ratio of engine power (that’s efficiently transferred into thrust) is compared to its weight (fuel) and drag (radiators, prop pitch, angle of attack, current IAS, skin damage).
Aircraft energy generation is vital for climbing and dogfighting alike. A plane with all things equal but worse energy generation will not be able to sustain a turn as long because turns drain energy, and sustained turn appears where energy generation and energy drained hit an equilibrium (for most props this is a much lower turn rate than they can really do at a given speed as prop engines are frankly, terribly weak.)
There’s ways around worse energy generation through altitude. This is why american planes (they’re kinda fat for their engines) are actually pretty maneuverable, but you don’t want a flat 2D rate fight in them. Instead, you want altitude and fight in a constantly descending spiral where you convert altitude into speed, which you convert into turn rate (see: https://youtu.be/I6ss2_yK910?si=4inIUbbkm4H4UrWx&t=914, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AXzlwLo7ta0)
(then there’s the fact that turning a plane is in fact accelerating a plane (changing velocity vector, g forces). Since we’re accelerating, it means a force is applied. If forces is constant but mass increases, rate of acceleration decreases. This is a complex interplay of wing shape (both topdown and side-on), center of mass/lift, wing position, wing area and mass and that’s beyond my amateur confidence to explain. However, this is a good introduction to the interplay of weight and lift in their impact on turn performance: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9twoHsMAiTM)
Now. This is all well and good but there’s even more differences.
Ever used the X-ray view?
You might have seen fuel tanks.
The position of fuel tanks in warthunder are actually modelled in the flight model, according to more experienced people in the sim discord at least. I’ve no idea how to make a rigorous test to prove it irrefutably though.
However.
Notice where the bulk of your aircraft’s fuel is stored.
Notice where the bulk of your aircraft would generate lift (this is kinda complicated as speed changes this).
As a rule of thumb, the mass of a pre-FBW aircraft will concentrate in a position forward of the position of the lift it generates. The reason this is is because planes whose center of mass is further than their center of lift will, in event of a symmetric stall, drop the nose and stop stalling after control surfaces stop working from low air speed. This is less likely to happen in combat scenarios as planes are rarely perfectly coordinated which causes one wing to stall before the other and then you’re spinning (however, more nose heavy planes are easier to recover in my experience - compare mustang mk ia vs spitfire mk V)
That’s a lot of side-tracking.
Or is it?
Think.
If the fuel tank is behind the pilot (who usually sits on the wings), you shift center of mass further behind and decrease the stabilizing force. This means you should theoretically be able to pull harder, and stall more readily, and recover less easily. I might test later today if this manfiests with D mustangs, as D mustangs IRL were infamous for being very uncontrollable at high fuel levels (to the point pilots would drain the “seat” fuel tank before drop tanks so that they don’t depart flight).
If the fuel tank is instead in the wings or further ahead, it will likely increase the distance between center of lift and center of mass and cause the plane to become more sluggish in turns but more stable as well.
AFAIK, fuel tanks drain evenly in warthunder unlike real life, so multiple tanks should have a less severe effect.
I suppose the best test for this would be to take a plane out with full-real controls, fix speed and altitude and check how much elevator trim you need to keep the nose steady.
Personally
I usually fly my props with 30 minute fuel regardless of plane because I’m uncomfortable flying with less than 10 minutes of fuel and usually go and RTB once I’m nearing a 15 minute mark in SB. In RB I used to go for 25 minutes (match length). Important to note is that WEP affects every plane differently. Some become gas guzzlers and 30 minute fuel disappears very quickly if you’re constantly WEPing, while others it barely changes.
Edit: Screw it. I went and tested it now. Irresponsible adulting or not.
P-51-D5.
31 minute fuel: My trim pre-set kept her stable and hands-off at 3 km altitude ~400 km/h IAS as I spawned into test flight. I had to adjust pitch trim to get her level to around 6%.
105 minute (max fuel): I spawn into test flight at 3 km altitude ~400 km/h IAS and my P-51-D5 starts wobbling around and it’s taking me effort to stabilize her. Elevator inputs remained wobbly even post stabilization. Couldn’t find perfect level flight pitch trim, but I was searching around NEGATIVE 2-5
I’ve no idea how these differences affect mouse aim flight, but if that’s not super tangible and demonstrative in sim control scheme… I’ve no idea what is.
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100% true.
It’s less (albeit to me still) noticeable on many props or lower performance jets, mostly because a lot of these things often have relatively high minimums to begin with.
But on high / ultra high performance aircraft, the difference can genuinely be night and day.
For example on some top tiers, the difference between min/max is the difference between positive and negative thrust to weight. That is to say, being minimum will allow you to accelerate even in a full vertical 90° climb. That’s very noticeable.
It’s a huge advantage in dogfights, and that’s why you will see most people in the 1v1 competitive scene take min fuel all the time. Many of these fights are won and lost simply because one guy ran out of Dino-juice, but they consider that worth the risk for extra performance.
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I really need to be less impulsive.
I’ve made you a video demonstrating how center of gravity shifting by increasing fuel load in the P-51D mustang affects aircraft handling.
I have no idea how well this transfers or impacts air RB with mouse aim, but in air sim or air rb with full-real (instructorless) control - the difference is life and death.
As you can observe in the min fuel demonstration, it’s easy and intuitive to turn and handle the P-51D. Its nose stays put, settles down and flies where you point her. With max fuel, she can enter unstable regimes where despite taking hand off stick (centering mouse joystick) and trimming for level flight, the nose continues to climb and climb and climb.
Also observe just how far back I pull the stick between min fuel and fly stable and steady without hints of stall and then compare it to where I must put it at max fuel to avoid departing stable flight.
As for more aspects of “Does Warthunder model this?”
Some other neat parts of flight that warthunder models
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3S5eOLcYI7Q
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-16bEQ2vjcA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6SF44ZkwjUY
Precession especially is pretty cool because…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=86PPORTVHNE
And in the P-51 video, you can observe precession causing me to yaw left, which caused me to roll left, which added together almost made me stall when I made a violent down-pitch motion.
I have never seen that message. huh.