In om,
Doug wrote:

Im Sim flying from Vancouver Canada to LA in the Cessna 172, and had
to land in Portland and Fresno because I was low on fuel. ATC directed
me to parking in both cases and in Portland the fuel station was right
beside the parking area. But in Fresno it wasn't so I saved the
flight, started another new flight in Fresno at night time, and flew
around till I found the yellow square. Now I can go back to the saved
flight and go taxi to the fuel station and continue. Is there an
easier way to find the fuel stations? Are they on the maps of jeppesen
simcharts? I hope FS2004 makes refueling a little easier.. Thanks in
advance for your help...

Doug (Stuck in Fresno)

You can set the fuel quantity in the 'Create a flight' menu.

Also in that menu, when you select the departure airport, some of them offer a
whole selection of gate positions (for passenger jets) or GA parking spots
('General Avition' - that's you) as well as the runway takeoff positions.

I can't speak for the realism of the 'fuel-box' in FS. It's been there since the
earliest versions. At the time, it was only ever available at 'selected
airports' and they probably never got around to adding the necessary scenery
coding for all 23000+ airports around the world. Too much trouble verifying the
positions are correct, for a start.

Whether Jepp charts will help, I'm unable to say. If there's a symbol for
fuelling area on an airport chart, then give it a try.

From what little I know of real-world operations, Airliners don't always fly on
full tanks, often trading off fuel load for passenger or cargo capacity. When
they do fill up it's either by tanker truck or pipeline outlets at the gates.
Therefore, don't expect to find the fuelbox near the main terminal buildings.

GA plane rental arrangements are commonly "tanks-full to tanks full", so it
would be realistic to always top off the tanks, just after you arrive. You don't
have simulated passengers or luggage, or "weight & balance" calculations to
worry about... g

As for fuel consumption enroute, in FS5.1 I once managed to get a Cessna 182 RG
from Johannesburg to Mauritius! I don't know the 172's fuel capacity but you
might have been able to get to LA non-stop. Mind you, I was cruising at 7500',
mixture 'lean of peak' and landed with barely 6 gallons (or was it 6lbs!!??) of
fuel remaining. Talk about a close shave! The last hour (in the red part of the
fuel gauge) was sheer torture....

In reality, Madagascar would have been the logical stopover point but FS5.1 only
had a small selection of airports outside of the USA and Antananarivo (great
name!) wasn't one of them. Not so parochial now, though. ;-)


--
Happy landings

Mark