Fuel release while in flight

[Phoenix1945]

Is there a way to release fuel out of the craft while in flight? When I have trouble with heavy planes in long flights it would save me a lot of trouble to be able to get rid of the tonnes of fuel before crashlanding. It does happen

Edited April 3, 2015 by Phoenix1945
spelling correction

[Van Disaster]

Two mods I can think of:

* TAC fuel balancer includes a dump option

* SmartParts has a part you can attach to a tank to dump it's contents

[Phoenix1945]

Thanks

[Random Tank]

Unfortunately no, there is no way to just flat out drain a tank of fuel in Stock KSP... the only way you could sort-of do it would be to use engines to burn the fuel, but this obviously could take some time with Jet engines; or have empty drop tanks fitted to the craft that you can fill up with fuel and decouple when you need to dump fuel...

The 2 mods that Van Disaster can do it, and Ship Manifest can do it too (if you have realism mode off), so that would be the best bet.

[Tweety]

I actually have NO reason now to not install TAC fuel balancer. I keep putting off mods but simply can't with this one for this very compelling reason! Thank you for drawing my attention to fuel dumping people!

Tweety

[Foxster]

There is a way to do it without resorting to a mod...

Set up an action group to toggle both engines in the VAB. When you want to use up fuel without changing attitude or acceleration then enable these with the action group and run until the tank is at the level you want. It does waste a very small amount of mass but that might not matter if you are talking about a big ship.

Would be even better to use a couple of vernor engines (massless and use regular fuel) but I never figured out how to get two RCS ports to fire in opposite directions at the same time.

Edited April 3, 2015 by Foxster

[Tex_NL]

There is a way to do it without resorting to a mod...

http://i.imgur.com/noB6BJm.png

...

Yes, this CAN work. But only when you have both fuel and oxidizer. If you're missing one you can't get rid of the other. And it will take time, with those puny engines it will take a lot of time.

In the rare occasions I need to dump I need to dump now. And now means NOW! Not over a period of 5 minutes. TAC Fuel Balancer can get rid of fuel as rapid as tipping a bucket.

Edited April 3, 2015 by Tex_NL