Calculating aircraft flight ranges

[bladesinger79]

I'm in NF #7. Going up against a full squadron of MiG-31 Foxhounds. Looking at their specs, it reads that they have a range of 2500nm with a ferry loadout. If loaded with weapons, they have a range of 490nm. Well, it's well over 1000nm between Iceland and the nearest Russian air base. Couldn't figure out how they were able to reach that far even if they had refueling options. Being curious, I looked at the enemy flights in Editor mode and...well, I was quite surprised to learn that once they reached within 50nm of Iceland, they had 1400nm of fuel!!!

HOW THE HELL CAN THEY DO THAT?!?

Apparently, I'm not calculating fuel ranges correctly when reading aircraft specs. With the Foxhound example, someone educate me on how they can more than triple their weapon loadout ranges.

I'm not bitching, just want to know how it works so I can do it to the enemy.

[bsq]

... With the Foxhound example, someone educate me on how they can more than triple their weapon loadout ranges.

They can't. Have another look in editor mode to see if the Russians have IL-78's. If they do, then that will be your answer.
I would also presume that some of the 1400nm is going to be used for combat, so it will be nowhere near that range, so they may need fueling on the way back too.

Also I just noticed this in the description for the combat missions:

Outbound 40kft in AB (clearly they may not have come all that way on AB)
Inbound 40kft in cruise

In AB they burn about 4.5 times the amount of fuel they do when cruising.

See what it says in kg for the fuel remaining. MiG-31s have around 16 tonnes of fuel when full. This will tell you whats going on.

[bladesinger79]

Yep. Il-78s and lots of them.

Figures. Ah well.

[Gunner98]

Yeah

They are ferrying to Iceland with tanker support. The smaller Migs (23 & 29) are stopping off at Jan Mayan for some juice as well

[Lace]

At the risk of stating the obvious - bear in mind that ferry range is a one-way transit, i.e. airbase to airbase in the cruise, whereas combat loadouts are a radius, i.e. fly x nm, y min loiter/perform task, fly x nm back home.