Spitfire Unplayable?
 

What's up with the Spitfire RPM being pulled back to below 2200 1 minute after takeoff? I suspect this is the auto engine management kicking in as I have CEM turned off? At that power the plane is unflyable, I can barely even manage the most gentle of climb's, something must be wrong here.

Also cannot get any tracers in the spit either? Even changing the loadout has no effect.

CEM=OFF = the prop will automatically be set to coarse for cruising. Enable CEM and manage it yourself ;)

What about flaps?

They are retracting automatically when taking off!! How can i disable it?

Easy, leave them up..they are not variable flaps..they are landing flaps.. they are for massive drag, not changing the air foil of the wing. Spit does not use them to take off..only for landing.

Yup, I have noticed that too. I have CEM = off but have noticed this problem is rather random. Some of the quick missions are playable and some aren't, because of the low RPM problem which kicks in either almost immediately or after a minute or so. For those missions with the problem, I switch to the Hurri which doesn't seem to suffer as badly. I think it must be a bug - surely not pilot error?!

Thanks guys,

thought they can be handled a little bit.

I have zero interest in CEM. That's bought an end to my campaign, not that it was any good anyway. Seriously this game feels like a tech demo. The Single Player experience is almost non existant.

Each to his own, but CEM made this flightsim for me.
It is absolutely awesome in my view.
Love every minute of it.

Finally took the Blennheim up, man, what a ride.

I've noticed that the spit seems to have issues with CEM disabled. I sometimes struggle to keep up with the bombers. But While I'm struggling to keep up with them at full throttle, I notice the rest of my squadron are darting in and out of the bombers like they are standing still.

I'd probably like to get into CEM but it's too much for me at the moment. I'd prefer to concentrate on combat for now.

With CEM disabled I feel you should at least be able to fly within 90% of a competent pilot, perhaps leaving the ones that want to fly manual a 10% advantage for their efforts? And perhaps give an incentive for novice pilots to learn to use CEM.

I had wondered about this.

Looks like I shall just have to pull my finger out and finally learn CEM.
Always meant to. This will be the kick up the backside I needed.

I was thinking the same but gave a try and it's not that hard really, took me couple days to get memorize most basic features in Spitfire. Hardest part was getting engine run steady enough and not spitting oil to my face after while. Solved by using lean mixture inflight and lower propellor pitch, so rpm's did go down to ~2800, now combine this with radiator open and engine works pretty good in lower altitudes. Haven't tried high altitudes much yet, that's probably a whole different case again :grin:

It may have something to do with the CEM being on and im sure if you turn it off you can override your problem as i have this problem too..

however i do also think its a bug and it shouldnt be there as i dont get this in every mission only some...the spit and 110 SP i get it 10 seconds after i start..RPM drops down to cruise as well as a few more SP missions..cant remember which ones right now ;)

For me it is great. Learning to use cem makes flying better in CLOD.

I really love it. First i was unsure if i can handle it but now i really like it and dont want to miss it. Its agreat improvement.:-P

CEM is made very easy in this game: just open all radiators and keep your rpm below limits with prop pitch. Let your engine to warm up after start up a bit.

The best online servers and "online wars" would have definitely CEM on (check my sig). It brings back this "wow it flies" feeling we had in IL-2 10 years ago.

You are right its not your lack of steering the aircraft. But then again thats not the way it was meant to turn.

You need the hydraulic brakes to properly turn the aircraft around. Bind the wheel brake button or axes (not left or right this works only for german planes) to your right pinky button if you have it or to something else, then when you want the aircraft to turn to the right while taxxing for instance push the wheelbrake button this will enable hydraulics to the rudder brake system. with this button pressed and your rudder centered it will give equal amounts of brake power to both brakes. Kick in the right rudder just as you would "step on the ball" in a air-turn ie controlled turn. this will give more power to the right brake and with throttle up you will turn to the right.

I just posted this in another thread, but here it is again, as it's a summary of the issue that has been described here:

When I initially started playing the game, my throttle would sit at around mid-range RPM and my airspeed would slow down to the point where I couldn't perform combat manoeuvres.

After a little investigating, I determined that the AI controlled pitch lever was being incorrectly used (simple engine management system). The AI would set fully course pitch almost all the time, which is fine for high speed cruise, but useless for lower speed manoevures like in combat. Instead of it moving the pitch to the fine forward position when the aircraft slowed down, it would leave it course - resulting in a reduced RPM and inefficient blade angle.

All I'm saying is: take a look at what your pitch lever is doing when it's being controlled by the AI. If it's always full course (all the way back towards you), there's the problem.

Just another bug to be addressed no doubt - poor automatic management of pitch lever as airspeed changes.

in addition to above :

If you want to do take-offs (only tried with hurricane however) , don't disable limited fuel. on mission start with the hurricane the fuel cock isnt operable and the fuel cock is in the off position.

Of course, in a RL taildragger the ability to go straight on its own is non-existent (without a lock - and even then you might lose it) so adding a full rudder (or just none) should result in a spirited turn off of the runway, especially - very especially - to the left. Oh, yeah ... no groundloops in game ...

Maybe i'm tired but i have absolutely no idea what you are trying to say. I wrote that bit in answer to the 'i can't turn to taxi bit'.

you are saying that in real life it should turn like crazy and in no way is able to hold it straight? Maybe i've been flying to much A-10C. this plane only responds to rudder input at 60 knots or higher. but offcourse this plane has a nosewheel and turbines.

Indeed! Turn all that off and go old school.

Turn it off, and be free!

Sorry guys... the Spit ain't no Tie-Fighter it actually flies as it should in CoD . So now its up to the pilots to learn how to get the best from it rather than depend on the UFO tactics of 46 :-P

I tried several times with the MkIIA full CEM and with AI controlled radiators, all is fine til about 4000 ft from 5000 ft the engines starts to stutter and more you climb, more the engine stutter is worse, then the engine fails at about 10000 ft. Thought that it was because the temperatures, but the water was stopped at about 100°C (it starts to boil at about 115°C because the glycol), the oil at about 80°C. If you fly at low altitudes no problem at all, you can fly with oil at 90°C and over, and the water at 120°C for few minutes without problems. But if you climb over 5000 ft... Maybe a bug, the beautiful Spitfire by A2A Simulations for FSX has a beautiful and real CEM, no problem with high altitudes. Regarding Cod Spit maybe a bug or another real feature that we are ignoring, like the ice in the carburetor, but in this case the engines doesn't fail, it stops. Is there anyone here able to go on high altitudes with the Spitfire in full CEM?

Fuel Mixture? You should lean it out as you gain altitude.

According with several sources, the Spit (and the Hurry), has 2 positions on fuel mixture, you can use the lean position only for cruise. Climbing it has to be rich at about +6 at 2600 rpm. But I tried, moving the (inverted in the game) lever to lean produces a major engine stutter, and this is normal I think. But why the engine starts to stutter above 5000 ft???? :confused:
On the other side the engine's cut on negative g is not a problem and doesn't cause problems.

Now I can manage the full CEM on the Spit and the Hurry because in combat the altitudes vary continually and mostly you finish your fighting at sea level. But if you try to return to base at high altitudes, the engine fails... :twisted:

What doe's the boost cut off do?

Two position mixture doesn't sound right. 2 position pitch, maybe.
+6 Boost? I'd say that's too high. Try climbing at 2650 revs and +4 boost. Trim to maintain optimum climbing speed. I'm at work now so trying to do this from memory but will see what I did to get up to 20000ft. This is in the Spit, not sure about the Hurri but will try it out.

No, it has only 2 position mixture: rich and lean. Lean is for cruise, because the Spit has huge amount of fuel consumption and this is a good compromise between horizontal speed, temperatures and fuel consump. The mixture is not critical like a Cessna or other small planes, where you have to listen to the engine and then pulling or pushing the mixt lever to find the right mixture. An engine of 27 liters works different. Tried at at +4 and +2 boost, even at high, med and low rpm: climbing full CEM over 5000ft means engine's fail with Spit mkIIa (rotol prop).

I tried Spitfire I (not IA) and Hurricane I (Rotol) and managed to get both to 20,000ft. I wasn't possible to get higher.

Climb limit (30min) for Merlin II and III: +6.25 Boost and 2600 RPM
Climb limit (30min) for Merlin XII: +9 Boost and 2850 RPM (however as the boost gauge is broken at the moment it's not possible to check this)

OK, now I have a project for tonight!

Thanks. I'll let you know later!:grin:

Well, I've just tried it with both Mk1a and MkIIa Spits and got to 10000ft and back down again without mishap.

Once started on the ground in rich mixture, radiator fully open, allow engine to warm up to 80 degrees or so with brakes on and 0 boost.

Immediately taxi to runway and take-off at +5 boost.

As soon as you take-off, lower boost to +4 and pitch to 2650, and set engine to lean mixture.

After building up some speed, trim for climb at 160 - 180mph. Obviously IAS decreases as you climb.

Then it seems to be a balancing act between prop pitch and boost.
Coarsening the prop pitch keeps oil temp under control, lower revs=cooler oil temp, higher revs=higher oil temp. Keep to about 70 degrees.
Engine boost keeps water temp under control, keep to about 90 degrees.
I didn't go into the red boost zone at all much on the climb, so no more than +4 and sometimes as low as 0 boost.
All this was with coolant rad fully open.

After reaching 10000, I chopped the throttle and changed to rich mixture to keep the motor running, closed the coolant rad and pretty much split-'S'-ed to the deck.
For a trickle of power for landing I had to go back to lean mixture and back again to rich on chopping the throttle once on the ground again for the taxi.

Hope this helps!:)

bear in mind you must reduce power before reducing RPM, even modern aircraft with small engines and props don't like being overboosted.

and also increase RPM before incresing power.

now try and get to 30,000ft.

bear in mind that a lot of the fighting took place between 20,000 and 30,000ft.

Okey Dokey. BRB.:)

if you do, tell me how your doing it, cause i bloody can't, lol.

If you can climb at 10000 ft without any stutter then you have found the little trick. Was it smooth?

Ok, so the altimeter gets stuck at 11500 ft.:grin:

That was a challenge! No matter what I did, I couldn't get above this height, and whilst trying, was wallowing around the sky on the edge of stall.
The ground looked very far away though!

I took off from Manston, (Ramsgate, whatever) and gently circled around, but keeping wings as level as poss for lift.
This got me to 10000 quite easily, with no engine probs, but even with wings level, and the odd shallow dive to up the airspeed, could not get any height over 11500.

Bongo, you're a pilot, any tips?!:confused::)

@ Utu, do you mean engine stutter, or game stutter? The engine was smooth enough.

I mean engine stuttering, it becomes worse at 10000ft and over. I can climb at 14000 or 15000ft also, but the engine stuttering makes me epileptic, then if I insist to keep the altitude the engine fails with a message "presa d'aria bruciata" (air intake burnt).... :confused:

Hmm... that may mean that the supercharger has failed.

I'll try again and let you know if I have any better success.:(

i think something is broken at the moment, highest i've got to is about 18,000

its like the auto mixture isn't working.

can't get any of the planes anywhere near there cielings, and ideed the heights they fought at:(

yeah, I got to 21000' but the epileptic fits the aircraft was having between 10k and 21k was making me dizzy

Ok, just managed to get to 22000 (just!!), I didn't know how to push the throttle 'through the gate'.:rolleyes: before.

I was down to about 85 IAS by then.

By the time I got up there, the thing was shaking about unbelievably, although I couldn't decide whether it was supposed to be turbulence causing negative G and thus the misfires, if that what the 'stuttering' is.

Mind you, the motor was still running clean enough on the descent.

But lord above, it was hard work.:grin:

Don't know if I can even be bothered trying for another 10k.

Blimey, I'm knackered.:(

Should we be manually engaging high gear supercharging, or is it automatic?