Engine overheat

[JG4_Helofly]

Recently, I flew on a dogfight server and was chased by a spitfire (I flew a 109E1). After several minutes flying at full power at about 2500 rmp, the engine began to shake and finaly died. Rads were fully open. Now the problem is, that water temp. is nearly always the same in any situation from take off to landing. Even after shutting down the engine, water temp. remains unchanged. Oil temp. is never a problem. Is this a bug or something realistic I didn't know about? And how do you know when it's time to throttle down and cool the engine?

[pirke]

you must run on different engine and prop pitch settings :)
you have bf109 manual and see best settings for max cruse speed :)
i run on 1.3 ata, and prop pitch 10:30 , RPM 2250 :)

p.s. on your settings you can fly short time and engine will die ;)

[Blackdog_kt]

Overheat is a combination of many factors: power settings, how open your rads are, how much air is going through these rads, ambient air temperature etc.

In other words, you could be cruising with rads almost fully closed at 450km/h and not feel a thing, or you could be engaged in a turn and burn dogfight and it overheats regardless of radiator settings because you are flying at full power and not enough airspeed.

The only way to be sure is to either test it a lot in single player scenarios (first thing i did for every aircraft i would fly is set up a free flight mission in QMB just to see how much i can get away with), or monitor those instruments in the middle of the fights (and risk losing sight of the enemy).

These are issues faced by the real pilots back then and as you can see, there's not a single solution for everything, it's more like a case of "everything is a trade off".

It's one more reason that many pilots didn't like dogfights and preferred a "single clean pass and then i'm out" technique, as the workload increases to the point that you can easily make mistakes or loose sight of the bandit.

That's exactly what i expected to see in CoD and the reason i was annoying everyone by repeatedly asking for improved CEM during the development of the sim ;)

There are still a few things to fine tune but even though we don't have 100% accuracy yet, just the fact that we face these problems takes gameplay to a whole new level. It will be interesting when we have P-47s, La-5s and other high performance types in future add-ons, because they are a royal pain to manage properly :-P

[JG52Krupi]

I'm gonna love the 190's engine management system :D

[JG4_Helofly]

Thank's for the answers guys.

Testing is the way to go then. I will practice a bit offline.
But what about water temp. ? Is it realistic to have nearly unchanged temp. regardless of speed, rad settings, rpm and power setting?

And I am looking forward to the 190 too :) . It has been my fav plane since forgotten battles. Let's hope it will come with the east front expansion.

S!

[pupaxx]

Overheat is a combination of many factors: power settings, how open your rads are, how much air is going through these rads, ambient air temperature etc.

In other words, you could be cruising with rads almost fully closed at 450km/h and not feel a thing, or you could be engaged in a turn and burn dogfight and it overheats regardless of radiator settings because you are flying at full power and not enough airspeed.

The only way to be sure is to either test it a lot in single player scenarios (first thing i did for every aircraft i would fly is set up a free flight mission in QMB just to see how much i can get away with), or monitor those instruments in the middle of the fights (and risk losing sight of the enemy).

These are issues faced by the real pilots back then and as you can see, there's not a single solution for everything, it's more like a case of "everything is a trade off".

It's one more reason that many pilots didn't like dogfights and preferred a "single clean pass and then i'm out" technique, as the workload increases to the point that you can easily make mistakes or loose sight of the bandit.

That's exactly what i expected to see in CoD and the reason i was annoying everyone by repeatedly asking for improved CEM during the development of the sim ;)

There are still a few things to fine tune but even though we don't have 100% accuracy yet, just the fact that we face these problems takes gameplay to a whole new level. It will be interesting when we have P-47s, La-5s and other high performance types in future add-ons, because they are a royal pain to manage properly :-P

+1000
I think this is the limit of all simulations. Those are evolved over time becoming even more realistic; but I think we'll experience a stop due to the lack of input data. Aerodynamic issues are a minor problem cause we have blueprints with relative section and wing profiles (NACA) and general data as weight, powerplants nominal power etc. On CEM side I challenge anyone to find a correct and reliable set of data related to thermodynamic aspect of various propelled engines. To be adherent to real life (sims tend to be more and more close to this aspect) we can not deny the air combat is uniquely linked to the management of the machine in all aspects (not least the engine management). Every book I read on WW2 air combats depict a scenario made of very intense but short engagements; however very different from what we see in multiplayer ( over-prolongued and over-maneuvred dogfight constantly at full RPM). The difference is that in real combat we face human factors like stress, fear, spirit of self-conservation; environmental conditions and technical aspects. What can we really expect from a sim in near future and what can we pretend?
Cheers

[TomcatViP]

+1000
Aerodynamic issues are a minor problem cause we have blueprints with relative section and wing profiles (NACA)
Cheers

The big problem the Air Simulation community has faced lately came right of this : misunderstanding of NACA tests and adjacent airfoils theories.
This had lead several individuals think they can take the fore front of simulation expertise with simple mathematical rules on hands showed (rather agressively) has powerfull and superior computing tools (can you see what I am finger pointing ?) .

The big problem we face is the overall understanding of aero principles and history of flight that are the only grounds where we can make judicious balance btw what can bee estimated mathematically at lobby level and real flight phenomena that are (supposedly) well known.

Yes you have understood my meaning : "Aerodynamics issues" are only "minor problem[s]" in the hands of the so called "Experts".

Hopefully many real flight charts are available around witch CoD devs could build other airplane characteristics.

Sadly many aficionados of one or another plane think their favorite mount is such unique that it can't be compared or extrapolated from an other one.

All is about balancing unless you want put several hundred of thousand of dollar in it.

Jane's in the past hve alrdy done such work. I can't understand why we did drove down that dead-end alley.

~S!

[Viper2000]

CFD is getting cheaper all the time. GIGO applies of course, but it's pretty good if you use it properly, especially in conjunction with known aircraft performance data.

The biggest limitation at present is the aeroelastic side, because that's much more computationally expensive. But it's very important; for example, a totally rigid CFD model of the Fw-190 would have a much more benign accelerated stall than the real aeroplane because the real thing's wing gets washed in slightly under load, promoting its well documented tendency to flick out.

If Moore's law continues to hold then ever-increasing fidelity will be possible. However, it's not obvious that there will be much of a consumer market for it, given the huge amounts of work (and cost) inherent in the generation of such complex models.

[JG4_Helofly]

Back to the OT, water temperatures aren't going to change as drastically as the oil temps in the 109. I never can get my water under 85C without a long dive, and rarely do I get it over 95 (scared to tbh). It seems to take 20-30 seconds for water to change at all (fast if you think of the numbers, but while dogfighting, an eternity) However, oil temps can range anywhere from 40C (again, open rad, diving, low throttle) to 90C (pushing hard with rad 1/2 open) quite quickly, around 10 seconds to overheating and blowing gaskets.

I've never looked it up, but I think its pretty accurate, as the oil is inside the cylinders/crankcase, but the water is in the engine case itself, and maybe even cooling the oil cooler, which would account for the delay/more stable temperatures.

That's the question. IMO water temp. does not change enough when changing alt, changing power settings or radiator position. I read storys about 109 pilots who had left their rads open during a dive which lead to a "frozen" engine. In game you can try and dive with throttle in idle position and rads fully open. It's not possible to significantly cool the engine.
Maybe someone has data on the subject or real life experience with aircraft engines.

[TomcatViP]

In game you can try and dive with throttle in idle position and rads fully open. It's not possible to significantly cool the engine.

I think this was implemented before they removed the shaking issue.

[5-in-50]

It should be possible to cruise an aircraft at a reasonable altitude with the radiator flaps fully closed. The combination of high speed and moderate power (AND low temperatures in the simulated region) will allow for sufficient cooling.

All I manage in any CoD aircraft is a ruined engine 20 seconds into a 'Quick Flight' if I forget to immediately open the Radiator Flaps.

To the OP: The issue you describe could also be related to your propeller pitch setting and the speed you travel. You can overspeed your propeller in a dive and effectively cause the engine to cycle so fast that it shakes/burns to oblivion.

Pitch control in a dogfight is half the battle - Keep the RPM below the red line at all times

[TomcatViP]

I do confirm. You might hve to watch closely your rpm that can be dropped bellow the recommended settings in these conditions

[bob_baer]

Hi guys. Is it correct that OIL radiator is not controllable? Or at least it seems so in the hurricane
Ciao

[Blackdog_kt]

It all depends on the aircraft you are flying. If it has dual radiators (like the 109) you get two controls to use, if it has a single radiator like the Hurricane does you only use the water radiator commands.