Valiant Tankers have no buddy fuel

[Randomizer]

In the CWDB, the Valiant B(K).1 and ECM/Tanker variants have no buddy fuel making them useless as refuelling aircraft. Please add fuel (~5000 kg seems reasonable given the bomb load was about 10,000 lbs). My scenario The V-Bombers makes use of the Valiant tanker fleet.

Thanks in advance.

-C

[.Sirius]

ORIGINAL: Randomizer

In the CWDB, the Valiant B(K).1 and ECM/Tanker variants have no buddy fuel making them useless as refuelling aircraft. Please add fuel (~5000 kg seems reasonable given the bomb load was about 10,000 lbs). My scenario The V-Bombers makes use of the Valiant tanker fleet.

Thanks in advance.

-C

Done

[Randomizer]

Very cool and fast work. Thanks

-C

[IJV]

I would say that would still leave them not functioning correctly - upping the fuel by just a bit is problematic in that the issue is that the aircraft itself (all variants, not just the tanker) carries far too little fuel in the first place - this means it's fairly useless as a tanker but also that it's much more fuel-efficient than it should be if drawing from tankers.

Going by the aircraft's flight manual (assuming I haven't messed up the imperial to metric to fuel weight conversion :V), max fuel capacity should be 25230kg with internal tanks only, 36320kg with external tanks (which seem to have been carried most of the time) and 38360kg otherwise (ie as a tanker with small bomb-bay tanks in addition to the aircraft's own).

There are also range problems of varying severity with all three of the V-bombers (with Valiant coming out worst) but I'm going to make a post or three in the DB thread on that as it's, uh, definitely a bit spergy.

[Cik]

ORIGINAL: IJV
as it's, uh, definitely a bit spergy.

hey whoa there partner, we prefer the term "detail oriented" around these parts. thanks.[:D]

[Randomizer]

@IJV. Your numbers don't really add up. Wikipedia's numbers conform to those on the BAE web site entry for the Valiant and come converted into metric.

Empty weight = 34,491 kg

Max Takeoff Weight = 63,600 kg

Therefore max useful load is 29,109 kg.

Max bomb load is on the order of 10,000 kg (1 x Blue Danube @ ~9,000 kg or 9,450 kg conventional bombs) which leaves ~20,000 kg for max fuel. Of course empty weight and mission ready zero fuel weight may be quite a bit different. A bomb bay tank probably weighs less than a full load of conventional bombs but 38,360 kg of fuel seems clearly impossible. You would need to know the mission ready zero fuel weight of the B.(K)1, which has to exceed empty weight since it includes all of the detritus that gets put onto a military aircraft before it flies and then subtract that from all-up take off weight. 15,000 kg mission fuel may be too little but 36,000 is clearly too much.

-C

[IJV]

ORIGINAL: Randomizer

@IJV. Your numbers don't really add up. Wikipedia's numbers conform to those on the BAE web site entry for the Valiant and come converted into metric.

Empty weight = 34,491 kg

Max Takeoff Weight = 63,600 kg

Therefore max useful load is 29,109 kg.

Max bomb load is on the order of 10,000 kg (1 x Blue Danube @ ~9,000 kg or 9,450 kg conventional bombs) which leaves ~20,000 kg for max fuel. Of course empty weight and mission ready zero fuel weight may be quite a bit different. A bomb bay tank probably weighs less than a full load of conventional bombs but 38,360 kg of fuel seems clearly impossible. You would need to know the mission ready zero fuel weight of the B.(K)1, which has to exceed empty weight since it includes all of the detritus that gets put onto a military aircraft before it flies and then subtract that from all-up take off weight. 15,000 kg mission fuel may be too little but 36,000 is clearly too much.

-C

Well, I'm assuming based off the pilots' handbook noting tyre pressures for weights up to 167,000lb / 75.7t (apparently you have to bump the tyre pressure up above 138,000lb which perhaps means it's a 'possible if you must but we'd rather you didn't' sort of thing?) that one can actually fill the tanks and also take a useful load. If 34t/64t is correct then the aircraft can't even lift a full fuel load with zero payload which seems hard to believe. Normal loadouts also won't have been that heavy - Blue Danube is afaik around 4.5t (not 9), Yellow Sun 3t to 700kg, Red Beard 800kg or so for 1.6t total. In game all three of the aircraft have longer ranges when carrying much higher weights of HE which is part of the problem I'm writing up.

The B-47 by comparison seems to have required around 45t of fuel to take a 10t load to 2000nm and return (vs 1400-1500nm for the Valiant), at the side of which which 20t seems to smell rather off, 36t less so.

[.Sirius]

Hi guys I'll look into the Valiant stats and see what I get, I always use 3 sources for DB work and work from there, which may mean a mean average for fuel if you get my drift

[.Sirius]

Hi guys updated fuel loadouts on all Variants of the Valiant the tanker and OCM version had a 25400 kg capacity, all all variants carried large drop tanks so added those for all load outs which gave a range of 4500 nm