calculating aircraft endurance

[Dereck]

ORIGINAL: trojan

Does anyone have an idiot's guide to calculating arcraft range/endurance, preferably using words of one sylable or less. I've tried following the instructions in the editor manual but the figures I get don't add up.


Ta

The formula I figured out in Excel:
to calculate endurance: endurance = (3600 * (max range/60)) / cruise speed
to calculate max range: max range = ((endurance * cruise speed)/3600) * 60

[CobraAus]

I'm assuming that you desire a particular aircraft to have a certain range in the game.

I've found that the easiest way is to...

Start with your desired max range .............example 1200

Multiply by 60............................................. 1200 x 60 = 72000

Divide by cruise speed.............................. ...example 72000/200 = 360

The quotient is the number you put into the endurance box ... in this case 360 to have a 200 cruise speed airplane with a 1200 mile max range.

is there an equevelant formula for ships

Cobra Aus

[Dereck]

ORIGINAL: trojan

Does anyone have an idiot's guide to calculating arcraft range/endurance, preferably using words of one sylable or less. I've tried following the instructions in the editor manual but the figures I get don't add up.


Ta

I gave you the formula that I used in another thread:

1) Endurance = (3600*(max range/60))/cruise speed

2) Max Range = ((endurance*cruise speed)/3600)*60

For #1 if you know the max range of the plane you can calculate what the endurance will be.

For #2 if you know the endurance you can calculate what the max range would be.

[the potemkin]

how does droptanks figure in when calculating endurance?

[Mike Solli]

ORIGINAL: Lemurs!

I don't know... the pilots that flew direct to Lunga and did not yet have Buka to stage back to were all super elite pilots with about a bazillion hours in the air.
Joe and i feel it was a special circumstance and we can not extend range IN GENERAL for every special circumstance.

I am unsure still.

I suspect pilots and crew chiefs knew how to 'read' range numbers
and come up with something useful. I hate to say it but i do not.

Does range mean with an average bomb load or max? Single flight or more than one aircraft? I subtract close to 25% of an aircrafts range for form up time, which is why i am not increasing the range on the Devestator as a recent poster wanted.

Did you know that when more than one plane is in the air a wingman will use 20% more fuel than the flightleader? Is that taken account of in range settings?

I suspect that 11 hex range is Japans idea of 'you probably won't make it back but your Japanese so you will do it anyway'.
There are no rules in WITP to account for flying beyond standard range.

Andrew states the answer in the aircraft post; it is 647 miles between Lunga and Rabaul. The best an A6M2 could do in an organized combat flight with very experienced pilots was 600 miles.

I think the range will stand as is and you will all have a reason to build up Buka or Buin.

Mike

In Saburo Sakai's book, he talked about flying from Rabaul to Guadalcanal. He commented that only the most experienced pilots could do it by reducing the fuel:air ratio.

[treespider]

In Saburo Sakai's book, he talked about flying from Rabaul to Guadalcanal. He commented that only the most experienced pilots could do it by reducing the fuel:air ratio.

I think the point Lemurs was trying to make was that not every pilot is the most experienced pilot.

[the potemkin]

I think it was the units with A6M3 32 (Hap/Hamp/Zeke32) that lost planes; it had about 20% shorter range than the A6M2

It was those losses that made them make changes to the A6M3, resulting in the the A6M3 22 with additional fuel tanks in the wings and folding wing tips, restoring the range to that of the A6M2.

The A6M2 had a range of ~1200 st.miles without droptanks, and ~1950 st.miles with.

[Don Bowen]

ORIGINAL: the potemkin

how does droptanks figure in when calculating endurance?

Anybody know??

[jwilkerson]

ORIGINAL: Don Bowen

ORIGINAL: the potemkin

how does droptanks figure in when calculating endurance?

Anybody know??

Depends on the drop tanks. SOme drop tanks offer enough capacity to equal roughly double the internal capacity, others much less. I haven't read this thread, just responding to Don's one question here ... but the question of a "formula" for range ... is not a slam dunk ... if it was .. these questions wouldn't be out there ... everyone would know the answer already. Problem is that "it depends" on the flight characteristics of the airplane...at what altitude and what speed does the plane most efficiently use its fuel supply ? And this data is not readily available - it generally has to be pieced together plane by plane from many sources.

But as a simple example, the Nate has 96 gals internal and 2 x 28 gal drop tanks ... range is variously given 1050 miles or 339 miles ( and some other numbers as well ) ... of course "range" is not combat radius. Combat radius usually includes both a combat reserve and a navigation reserve ( 20% and 10% or thereabouts ) ...

Assuming that the roughly 150 gals capacity and the 1050 mile maximum theoretical range are valid .. then we have about 7 miles to the gallon at maximum fuel efficiency. Also as maximum speed is about 280 mph we can assume efficient crusing speed would be around 150 miles per hour ( or lower if possible but this is a convenient number ) ... so we have 7 hours maximum flying time at maximum effficiency.

If we first use up the external tanks ( about 50 gals ) then we have flown 2.3 hours and 350 miles. Now if we fight for 20 minutes a 4x fuel consumption then in this 20 minutes we use 140 minutes of efficient range ... or about 2.3 hours of efficient range ... this leaves us with 2.3 hours of efficient range remaining to return to base with no reserve !!! To gain a reserve, we would have to further limit combat time to maybe 15 minutes.

10, 15, 20 minutes these were fairly typical fighter combat times, so nothing to be alarmed at. But note the above is done without detailed knowledge of the most efficient flying altitude and speed for the Nate. This data, if it were available, could improve and de-improve the flight plan.

Software to calculate flight time and fuel use is available ... but it is available by airplane. There is no scientific means of computing fuel use and range for planes " in general " ( at least not that I've ever found ).

[Dereck]

ORIGINAL: the potemkin

how does droptanks figure in when calculating endurance?

It would depend on each specific plane and whether you can get information about it concerning it's range without a drop tank and then with a droptank.

For instance I have information on the following aircraft:

F6F Hellcat ............ w/out droptank: 1,090 miles ..... with droptank: 1,530 miles
F4U Corsair ........... w/out droptank: 1,015 miles ..... with droptank: 1,562 miles
P-38 Lightning ....... w/out droptank: 475 miles ........ with droptank: 2,260 miles
P-39 Airacobra ...... w/out droptank: 600 miles ........ with droptank: 1,100 miles
P-40 Warhawk ....... w/out droptank: 700 miles ........ with droptank: 1,500 miles
P-47 Thunderbolt ... w/out droptank: 700 miles ........ with droptank: 1,500 miles
P-51 Mustang ........ w/out droptank: 950 miles ........ with droptank: 2,080 miles

A6M Zero ............. w/out droptank: 1,160 miles ..... with droptank: 1,930 miles
N1K1 George ........ w/out droptank: 890 miles ....... with droptank: 1,581 miles
B5N Kate .............. w/out droptank: 634 miles ....... with droptank: 1,238 miles
D4Y2 Judy ............ w/out droptank: 909 miles ....... with droptank: 2,239 miles
B6N Jill ................. w/out droptank: 909 miles ....... with droptank: 2,142 miles
G4M Betty ............ w/out droptank: 3,041 miles ..... with droptank: 3,506 miles
Ki-27 Nate ............ w/out droptank: 390 miles ....... with droptank: 1,060 miles
Ki-45 Nick ............ w/out droptank: 1,243 miles ..... with droptank: 1,404 miles
Ki-61 Tony ........... w/out droptank: 373 miles ........ with droptank: 684 miles
Ki-84 Frank .......... w/out droptank: 1,025 miles ..... with droptank: 1,815 miles
Ki-21 Sally ........... w/out droptank: 932 miles ........ with droptank: 1,680 miles

As you can see, droptanks could more than double the distance (see the P-38 Lightning) or only add a few hundred miles to the distance.

[Don Bowen]

The question I have concerns the effect of drop tanks in WITP.

A number of drop tanks are defined in the Devices table and are used in a few aircraft. For example, the F-5A Lightning (Aircraft 167) uses two 150-Gallon drop tanks (Device 220).

Does the stated endurance of 210 account for the drop tanks or is there some in-progam routine that decides when to mount them and adjusts endurance accordingly????

[Dereck]

ORIGINAL: Don Bowen


The question I have concerns the effect of drop tanks in WITP.

A number of drop tanks are defined in the Devices table and are used in a few aircraft. For example, the F-5A Lightning (Aircraft 167) uses two 150-Gallon drop tanks (Device 220).

Does the stated endurance of 210 account for the drop tanks or is there some in-progam routine that decides when to mount them and adjusts endurance accordingly????

When I was checking aircraft distances to modify for my custom scenario I noticed that planes like the F6F Hellcat had an endurance which equated to roughly 880 miles so I was assuming that was without droptanks.