Me 262 campaign cant take off

[Wotan_]

So I have been playing Il2 1946 for some days and when I wanna take off the M262 A1 in campaign, the engines are instantly catching fire when i move the throttle and I tried it several times. It always happened in the 5 tries and I am realy getting frustrated, when i just fly around with air spawn, it works fine, but when i am on the airfield and have to take off, my engines just go on fire once I increase the throttle power.
Can anyone help me with this?

thanks in advance,
Wotan_

[KG26_Alpha]

I have my own personal way of handling this aircraft, but these pilots notes should get you safely in the air.

Messerschmitt 262 take-off, flight and landing procedures in IL2 1946.

Take-off.
Select the left hand engine and press the engine start key (I by default) and then set the throttle to 10%. Watch the left hand engine RPM indicator and as soon as the revs start to rise close the throttle from 10% to zero. When the RPM indicator settles just above the zero on the indicator then repeat the above to start the right hand engine.
When both engines have been started press the select the all engines key on the keyboard (User Defined).
During the starting procedure the nose of the aircraft may have shifted to point off centre of the runway,
if this is the case then apply the brakes and gently power up both engines and use the rudder to correct the alignment back to the centre of the runway.
Once the nose is pointing down the centre of the runway then reduce the power back to zero and release the brakes.
This procedure is vitally important-if the nose is not pointing down the centre of the runway then you will find when you apply power during take off you will rapidly slew across the runway and onto the grass (you will notice that this does happen on occasion with the AI aircraft with potentially disastrous results).
At this point the flaps can be set in the take off position and the elevator trim can be set to between two to four degrees positive.
When you are ready to begin take off, apply the brakes and keep them applied and begin to gently increase the power to both engines until the RPM indicators show 6,000 RPM,
during the run up to 6,000 RPM the nose of the aircraft may start to move off centre of the runway and this again must be corrected with the rudder.
As soon as the aircraft in front off you has began its take off run then release the brakes and gently increase power to 100% using the rudder to maintain alignment with the centre of the runway
(NOTE:- the rudder will not start to have any effect on alignment until the ground speed has increase to approximately 60kph).
When the ground speed reaches 160kph the nose of the aircraft will start to lift, at this point gently pull back on the stick to break free from the runway and as soon as possible apply the brakes and retract the undercarriage.
When an altitude of approximately 250 metres has been reached then retract the flaps and gently throttle back to just below 80% to return the engine temperature back to normal and begin your climb to combat altitude.


Combat
On entering the combat zone do not increase the throttle past 80% unless you find yourself in a totally defensive position.
This is important as when the throttle is pushed past 80% two big black engine exhaust trails will point you out to any enemy aircraft in the area,
it's better to stay high and at 80% throttle to make you a harder target to spot.
Once you have decided on you intended target then dive down to start a pursuit curve to bring yourself in the rear hemisphere of the target,
make one firing pass before using your superior speed to climb back to altitude and begin the procedure again.
Never reduce your speed to maintain a position on the tail of the target as you will loose your advantage of speed and become a sitting duck for any other enemy fighter.
Remember speed is height and height is speed!.
When used correctly the 262 is a devastating fighter which no enemy aircraft can match for speed and firepower.
Always try to maintain a smooth flight path with gently turns that will allow you to keep your speed up,
the tighter you turn in the 262 the more chance you will have of bleeding off your speed advantage and the strong possibility of blacking out (at which point you will be a dead duck not a sitting duck!)


Landing
Landing the 262 is possibly the hardest part of the flight and things can go wrong very quickly.
Allow yourself plenty of distance on your final approach and keep all your control inputs gentle.
The first thing to do is to reduce your speed to 500kph at which point you can start to deploy your flaps to the take off position.
When your speed reaches 350kph you can then lower the undercarriage and at 300kph you can lower the flaps fully.
Try to touch down with a speed of 200kph and as if you where landing with a tail wheel.
As your speed bleeds of after the main undercarriage has contacted the runway the nose wheel will drop and contact the runway,
at this point it is safe to start using the brakes to slow yourself down and the rudder to maintain alignment.
When you come to a standstill switch off both engines and pat yourself on the back.

It is highly important that while flying the 262 that all throttle inputs are done gently as the engines are very fragile and will easily catch fire through rough handling
(If you doubt this then during any phase of your flight try rapidly increasing and decreasing the power and watch the results!).

http://www.mission4today.com/index.php?name=Knowledge_Base&op=show&kid=287

[dimlee]

Good instructions. Should be useful for any Me-262 novice before he/she develops own style of flying this bird.
IMHO, this aircraft is Absolute Evil in our Game, - if operated properly.

[Derda508]

Well, all the above is correct, true and valid, but maybe there is a more simple answer to Wotan's question.
In our game Me 262 's engines will immediately catch fire anytime you move the throttle a littlebit too fast. And 'slow' is already too fast. So just try 'very, very slow'.

The swallow needs a long, long time to reach speed and altitude, and bleeds them in a moment. As Dimlee said it might be absolutely evil if operated properly, but in online fights against human pilots. Offline against AI it is pretty useless, since your enemies will always know exactly were you are and how far you are away and will turn sharply away exactly just before you get into shooting position. So boom and zoom ist pretty pointless against AI. Since their engine (and energy) management is also flawless, usually you get shot down even by greatly inferior aircraft.

[gaunt1]

My experience is the opposite. It is the only german plane that is a match to AI flown La-5FN, La-7, Yak-9U. If you fly the 262 properly, you are almost untouchable, even for the above aircrafts. Bnz works very well against them.

As for taking off with the 262. I think the problem lies elsewhere. Engine catches fire usually when you forget the throttle of the joystick in a position above around 20%. After pressing "I", if you move the throttle, even just a little bit, the game immediately sets the throttle to the value where you left the joystick. This results in fire usually. 2 methods to avoid this:
1, Set your throttle to 0 before pressing "I"
2, If you forgot to do the above, you can still correct it: Do not touch your throttle at all! Istead, increase power by using keyboard, until you reach the approximate value of the joystick. When reached, you can freely use the throttle.

[eda5]

The engine catches fire when the throttle is applying too fast, until the engine reaches 6000 rpm. After that you can move the throttle as you wish. So like gaunt1 says, set the throttle to 0, select the first engine, start, deselect, select the second engine, start, select both (all) engines. When the RPM indicators settles just above the zero, gently apply the throttle.

[Janosch]

I have one faint memory where an ai P-39Q chased my Me-262 a little too efficiently, in level flight. But, that was a couple of versions ago, so it's just a bad memory.

I think the best way to describe AI flight model and performance is that it really doesn't have energy. It doesn't have thrust, drag, lift, gravity or fish. AI does not use energy to move, it just moves. It doesn't have energy. It moves.

[Marabekm]

I have one faint memory where an ai P-39Q chased my Me-262 a little too efficiently, in level flight. But, that was a couple of versions ago, so it's just a bad memory.

I think the best way to describe AI flight model and performance is that it really doesn't have energy. It doesn't have thrust, drag, lift, gravity or fish. AI does not use energy to move, it just moves. It doesn't have energy. It moves.

Ok so AI doesn't care what aircraft is, it knows one thing. In mission builder you set waypoint height and speed. So if you set AI to fly at 600 km/hr 50m off the ground, that's what it will do. It does what it's told.

This is what results in AI aircraft in the campaigns operating so as the player can not keep up. Example: Load the Pearl Harbor campaign mission as a D3A. If you open the mission in the FMB, you will immediately see that the D3A's are set to travel at 400 km/hr. (That's 215 knots)
Have a look here: http://www.combinedfleet.com/ijna/d3a.htm

Notice the max speed of the Val? 209 knots. So end result, you can in fact no way keep up.

So really its up to mission builder to make sure and set realistic speeds for aircraft.

[Notorious M.i.G.]

Ok so AI doesn't care what aircraft is, it knows one thing. In mission builder you set waypoint height and speed. So if you set AI to fly at 600 km/hr 50m off the ground, that's what it will do. It does what it's told.

This is what results in AI aircraft in the campaigns operating so as the player can not keep up. Example: Load the Pearl Harbor campaign mission as a D3A. If you open the mission in the FMB, you will immediately see that the D3A's are set to travel at 400 km/hr. (That's 215 knots)
Have a look here: http://www.combinedfleet.com/ijna/d3a.htm

Notice the max speed of the Val? 209 knots. So end result, you can in fact no way keep up.

So really its up to mission builder to make sure and set realistic speeds for aircraft.

The waypoint settings are only for transit between those points. It doesn't matter what speed and altitude you set for them once they engage in combat - they'll accelerate/climb/dive to whatever they feel is appropriate to get the job done. You can edit the mission files with a text editor and make the waypoint for a LaGG-3 to be 900km/h and on spawning it will snap like any LaGG that was too eager in a dive.

Problem is that the AI seems to fly absolutely perfectly every millisecond, their engine management and trim is optimal at any given moment. This makes it appear as though their performance goes beyond the limits the player is constrained by - whether or not the AI uses the same FM as human aircraft or has a simplified version, I'm not sure of. Much like Janosch, I've had instances where a particulary persistent Kingcobra has kept pace with my Do 335, but being human I probably wasn't running engine settings etc in a way that gave me the absolute maximum speed I could get out of the airframe, whereas the AI was.

However I think the "just moves" part of their flight model these days is relegated to their landing, which looks decidedly artificial sometimes, especially when you make them snap out of it with a squirt of .50 ;)