Rad settings on the 109E?

[furbs]

Ok so im really getting into the CEM on my 109E but still wondering on settings for both rads for take off, climb, cruise and combat.
Should i just be watching my temps and adjusting?
What about alt? change for above 3K, 5K?

Any good Gen would be great chaps.

[Blackdog_kt]

Full open for engine start, take-off, landing and taxi.

During flight it depends on a combination of how much power you apply, how fast you are going and the outside temperature.

More power heats things up but at the same time a higher airspeed will provide increased airflow that gives a better cooling effect, so it's a balancing act between these two. I can easily cruise at 400km/h by using 1.2-1.3 Ata and 2100 RPM during level flight with the oil rads about 30% of the way open and the water rad closed an equal amount of keypresses.

And this is what gets us to a confusing bit. Why do i refer to amount of keypresses and not the slider position for the water rads? Well, the water rad slider in the info window of the interface doesn't show radiator position, while the oil rad slider correctly shows actual position (verified by looking at the in-cockpit control as well). What the water rad slider shows is the radiator's state of movement. It will indicate full forward for as long as you press the "open rads" key, full backward when presing "close rads" key and center when you leave it alone. The in-cockpit control is a rotating handle on the right side cockpit wall, it takes about 3 full turns to go from fully open to fully closed. The info window sliders for the He-111 work in a similar manner as well. Many people get confused by this and think their rads return to center the moment they release the key, this not true, it's just that the particular slider displays a weird choice of information of little practical use instead of the actual position of the control :grin:

To know the actual position of the 109's water rads look outside the cockpit, there are pins near your wing roots that extend from within the wing as you open the radiators. In any case, i can still attain the aforementioned performance with the oil rad about 30% open and the water rad definitely less than half-open.

During combat i advance throttle to 1.35 Ata, use the appropriate RPM for each case (more for climbing and slow-speed acceleration, less for level flight acceleration, dives and going faster when not in a climb) varying between 2100 and 2500 RPM and open the rads a bit more, maybe up to 3/4 open.

At this stage i'm so busy keeping tabs on the fight and working the prop pitch to stay in the correct power band that i rarely if ever check rads and temps during combat, but i've had no engines ever die on me in the sim unless i did it on purpose to see what it looks like and i started flying the sim with CEM and temp effects enabled from day one.

The trick here is that i didn't start flying combat right away. I set most of the difficulty options to on and just flew around in free flight, a couple of hours for each aircraft (which is no big deal due to the big map, just set the time of day to something that will give nice visuals, fly a couple of free flight missions and cruise around admiring the scenery while experimenting with your power and rad settings).
This really lets you get a feel for how each one performs and what to be careful about, so that taking the correct action during combat becomes automatic to you.

Most people have problems with the two-speed prop Spitifres as well, i find them a joy to fly and get good performance out of them with CEM on because it's so very simple to manage prop pitch: it's like you are driving a car with only two gears to worry about, so i set it accordingly, trim it well and go flying.
How? I don't even use the extra boost most of the time, i just take care to trim well, use max continuous power and this allows me to keep the rads only moderately open, resulting in higher airspeeds at lower power settings because it saves me drag. Plus, when i do need to firewall the throttle the engine is running nice and cool and has some useful extra of "time buffer" before it starts overheating.

This part about the Spit might seem off-topic to you but it's actually not. It illustrates a simple but important point that applies to all aircraft, including the 109: maximum performance is neither continuous nor efficient. It's better to fly "by the book" for most of the sortie and only use emergency power in, well, emergencies ( :-P ) as the engine will be running on sufficiently low temps to be able to take the abuse even if you don't immediately pop the rads full open. This doesn't only save you fuel, it also maximizes the gains from going full throttle/WEP, because you are flying in a configuration with less drag.



Long story short, i would suggest you initially go by watching the temps and adjusting in free flight while making a mental note of what works and what not as you go, so that by the time you take it into combat you will automatically think like this:

"Right, we're high so the air outside is cold, i plan on going fast and doing some boom and zoom, so i can get away with less radiator usage...i'll try 30% open and take a quick peek at the gauges after the initial merge to see how it works, readjusting as needed"

When you get to that point you'll probably never suffer any broken engines ever again, as long you remember a few things:

1) Map a key/stick button to the "look at instruments" function and use it for taking quick peaks in the midst of combat. It locks your view on the instruments as long as you press it, the moment you release it the view snaps back to where it was. Very useful when learning the ropes.

2) Use the sounds. Underwhelming as they might be in some cases, the in-cockpit sounds are fully dynamic in some aircraft, including the 109 and 110. With a bit of experience you can adjust your RPM by ear alone. Less time looking at the gauges and more time looking for bandits=good.

3) Water/coolant temps (for liquid cooled engines) and cylinder head temps (for radials) rise and drop faster than oil temps. It's easier to push your engine if your water temp is good and the oil temp is a bit high but not vice-versa. Just make sure you don't get the oil temps too high either, because they take longer to cool down as well. This is how it works in real life, in the sim i've found that at operational altitudes and airspeeds you can easily get by with less rad usage than in other sims that have a CEM component (for example, i've tried the A2A add-on Spit for FSX on a friend's PC and that thing overheats just idling on the tarmac).

4) Due to point 3 above, you can get by with brief power changes. If i cut throttle to stay behind a target for 5 seconds or if i go full power to catch someone in a climb for 10 seconds, i find that i don't really have to readjust my rads. If you plan on changing power settings for a considerable length of time however, take the time to monitor your temps and adjust as needed.

5) Finally, too cool is equally bad as too hot. Individual aircraft have their own limits (check the PDF manual in your respective folder: steam\steamapps\common\IL-2 CoD\manual), but as a rough rule of thumb i try to keep them between 40 and 95 degrees.

Sorry for the wall of text, i hope it helps you out getting started with the 109 ;)

P.S. Don't worry about flight above 3-4km. The auto-mixture routines seem a bit "funky" at present and in need of adjusting in a patch, every single aircraft with auto-mixture seems to be running at wrong mixture settings as you go higher and this causes sputters, shaking and lower engine performance in Spits, 109s, 110s, etc.

[Blackdog_kt]

That's about true for me too, i just try to pick up good habits in advance in case they fix it and it starts overheating ;)

[Redroach]

Well, the water rad slider in the info window of the interface doesn't show radiator position, while the oil rad slider correctly shows actual position (verified by looking at the in-cockpit control as well). What the water rad slider shows is the radiator's state of movement. It will indicate full forward for as long as you press the "open rads" key, full backward when presing "close rads" key and center when you leave it alone.

I've got the same problem. The info slider thingy only moves up- and downwards WHILE you operate the coolant radiator; afterwards, it snaps back to the middle position regardless of the actual state. The radiator itself is working correctly, it's just the slider that's confusing...

The oil radiator slider works fine, by the way.

[Redroach]

There is an indicator for the water rads: the little stick on the right inner wing - it may not be easily viewable without 6dof Trackir, as it is normally 'shaded' by the cockpit wall. Though, oddly, it works contrary to what is described in the original emil pilot's notes (stick fully out: rads open in CoD).

Still, the rad slider indicator could just as well be working as it does in other planes, for a quick look.

[xnomad]

Honestly in the game at the moment put oil and water rads at 50% and forget about them.

[David198502]

well i set them both at about 20-30% open and fly.i normally dont watch them again.i have good performance with the bf and no overheating whatsoever.the only situation when i adjust them again,is when im hit and see how the temps or pressure change.

[Redroach]

There is an indicator for the water rads: the little stick on the right inner wing - it may not be easily viewable without 6dof Trackir, as it is normally 'shaded' by the cockpit wall. Though, oddly, it works contrary to what is described in the original emil pilot's notes (stick fully out: rads open in CoD).

hmm I have to cite myself on this because I'm further confused by that stick on the right wing: Looking a bit closer, I've found that the labeling on the stick is apparently historically correct. It states "ZU", meaning "closed", when fully extended (the stick), despite the rads seemingly working just the opposite way.
So it seems that they've done their historical homework by looking into the emil manual, but there's just another case of sloppy programming. Or maybe it's a translation error. An error nonetheless.

[Varrattu]

hmm I have to cite myself on this because I'm further confused by that stick on the right wing: Looking a bit closer, I've found that the labeling on the stick is apparently historically correct. It states "ZU", meaning "closed", when fully extended (the stick), despite the rads seemingly working just the opposite way.
So it seems that they've done their historical homework by looking into the emil manual, but there's just another case of sloppy programming. Or maybe it's a translation error. An error nonetheless.

Hi redroach,
have a look at this:

http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/showthread.php?t=20797

regards Varrattu

[Redroach]

oh damn, I should have scrolled further down when searching for that issue. :rolleyes:
at least my findings are confirmed!