F-80 Fuel in Cockpit Gauge working?

[Blaze1969]

Curious if the in cockpit fuel gauge works or not it never seems to drop on my missions? Also are other in-cockpit animations planned like arming the JATO and having the red guarded toggle switch open and switch moved when JATO is activated? Tried to post in the F-80 forum but it wasn't an option for me.

[Jaegermeister]

The fuel gauge in the F-80 indicates the fuel level in the fuselage tank only. The wing tip, leading edge and wing tanks all drain into the main tank with automatic float valve controls, so until all the secondary tanks are empty, the main tank will always be full. Once you are down to the main tank and it starts to drain, you will start seeing indications of a change on your gauge.

Your auxiliary tanks would hold a total of 448 gallons with the 165 gallon wing tanks, and the main tank is 207 gallons, so when your fuel level starts to go below full you are at about one third of your total fuel load left.

Pilots at the time had to calculate fuel consumption in their head based on throttle setting / fuel consumption per hour x time in the air until they were on the way home. You could not use the fuel gauge to know when you were at bingo fuel. The tank switches were automatic with a manual bypass in case of damage to wing tanks or failure to feed issues.

 

Edited August 7 by Jaegermeister

[Redeye]

And when you activate the Jato the cover is lifted and the switch moves. But after activating the cover comes down immediately. So to see it you have to look at it when activating. 

[LukeFF]

3 hours ago, Jaegermeister said:

The fuel gauge in the F-80 indicates the fuel level in the fuselage tank only. The wing tip, leading edge and wing tanks all drain into the main tank with automatic float valve controls, so until all the secondary tanks are empty, the main tank will always be full. Once you are down to the main tank and it starts to drain, you will start seeing indications of a change on your gauge.

Your auxiliary tanks would hold a total of 448 gallons with the 165 gallon wing tanks, and the main tank is 207 gallons, so when your fuel level starts to go below full you are at about one third of your total fuel load left.

Pilots at the time had to calculate fuel consumption in their head based on throttle setting / fuel consumption per hour x time in the air until they were on the way home. You could not use the fuel gauge to know when you were at bingo fuel. The tank switches were automatic with a manual bypass in case of damage to wing tanks or failure to feed issues.

Yes, and to add to this, there is a three-digit fuel totalizer gauge next to the fuselage fuel gauge that shows the total amount of fuel on board the plane.