dsd_fuel_dump.gau

The name pretty much says it all.  When weight loss is prescribed for your aircraft, this gauge will do it for you.  That said, I wish to emphasize that this is a 'one size fits all' generic solution, and that it is not meant to simulate in any way the actual fuel jettison systems of any aircraft.  Its appearance and method of operation are purely the products of my imagination.

Functions:
The large numeric display that takes up the left hand part of the gauge is total fuel on board.  It will display in units based on your currently selected defaults for MSFS.  It can be toggled between pounds and kilograms by clicking on the last digit of the units display or slightly to the right thereof.

On/Off Switch - Will reset to 'Off' automatically under the following conditions:  the panel window is resized; the panel is reloaded or Dump Rate is set to 0.

Dump Rate (White number on the right hand part of the gauge)  Must be set to a non-zero value for fuel dump to occur.  The number approximates the percentage of total fuel capacity that will be jettisoned each minute.  While you will probably find a value of 1 to be painfully slow, if you set it at the maximum value of 15, you have, at most, 6.5 minutes of fuel left in your tanks!  You will probably want to experiment a little on the ground to find the value that is most appropriate for your aircraft.  Dump Rate will be reset to zero if the On/Off Switch is set to 'Off'

What's Going On:
The gauge uses FSUIPC v3.x to read fuel levels for each tank on the aircraft.  It deducts a calculated amount, based on the rate selected.  It checks to ensure the result is not negative and then writes it back to FS, again using FSUIPC.  Again, this is done on a tank by tank basis.  All tanks with fuel in them will be affected.  Dump Rate is calculated based on fuel capacity, not current fuel levels.  As such, rates will always be the same for a given aircraft, regardless of the amount of fuel carried at a given point in time.

Requirements:  FSUIPC version 3.x is required.  The gauge is accredited with FSUIPC and will therefore work with an unregistered version.  If you rename the file, it will not work with an unregistered version of FSUIPC.  I have not tested this gauge in FS2002 or earlier and do not expect it to work with these earlier versions of the sim.  FS2004 only!

Issues: There is one...  I have noticed that once I use this gauge to access fuel levels, I can no longer set fuel levels at 100% if fuel is displayed as weight.  The alternatives are 1. Reload the sim;  2. Set fuel to show as volume;  3. Settle for 99.9%   Not sure why this happens.  If I figure it out, I will upload v1.1 of the gauge.

Suggested syntax:  Because this gauge is not the most realistic looking thing ever created, you may want to put it in its own window, so that it can be out of the way when not in use:
//--------------------------------------------------------
[Window02]
Background_color=0,0,0 
size_mm=190,25
window_size_ratio=1.000  
position=0
visible=0
ident=250
window_size= 0.225, 0.05
window_pos= 0.000, 0.610

gauge00=dsd_fuel_dump!fuel_dump,  0,0,190,25
//--------------------------------------------------------

Note that the internal gauge name is 'fuel_dump'


Thanks to:
Bluesky Software for EasyGauge.
Pete Dowson for the FSUIPC module.
Dai Griffiths for his gauge creation tutorial.

This gauge must remain as freeware.

Doug Dawson
[email protected]
December 26, 2003