MATLAB: Subtracting a value from a scalar until the scalar reaches a certain point, then starts again.

Question

I know this is relatively simple, but I've been struggling with this.

I have a problem where I need to tell an airplane pilot how many times he will fill up and how much fuel he will have left after x amount of legs. We need to assume that everytime the plane reaches 5 gallons of fuel, the plane is refueled to full capacity.

Each trip burns 8 gallons of fuel.

The fuel capacity is 42 gallons.

The test case is 12 legs and the pilot will be left with 10 gallons. I am almost positve I need a for loop with i = 1:number of legs

I've tried for loops, while loops, and if statements and all I get is that there are -54 gallons left or it just infinitely runs.

Any amount of help would be appreciated.

Thanks,

Jack

Answer 1

Try something like this:

legamount = 12; 
refuel=0;
fuelremaingal = 42;
for i=1:legamount
    if fuelremaingal - 8 > 5
        fuelremaingal = fuelremaingal-8;
    else
        refuel=refuel+1;
        fuelremaingal = 29+fuelremaingal;%just math
    end
end