Quote:
Originally Posted by Scarf Ace!
When I fly in British fighters, the exhaust spits out black smoke and the plane shakes a little occasionally. The only way I know to reduce this is by making the mixture leaner, however I can't seem to totally prevent it.
Well, at least I managed to stop the engine from exploding immediately  |
When you get the shake and the smoke it's a sign of too rich a mixture, true. On the other hand you can't completely avoid it because it's also caused by maneuvering, you can get this effect easily during a stall after a high angle climb.
To be more precise, it happens whenever you push negative Gs (nose down), either by yourself or as a result of departure from controlled flight (stalls, spins, etc). The carburetor floater is pushed up due to the negative acceleration, allowing excess fuel to go through the pipe and that chokes the engine of air: it's like you are suddenly running with super-rich mixture for a few seconds.
This is reflected by the black smoke coming off the exhausts, a sign of incomplete combustion.
I only got my copy of the sim yesterday and flown just one sortie with the hurricane, but i'm very surprised and pleased to see how well they got this. If you've watched the "battle of Britain, the true story" BBC documentary (a member of this community has uploaded it on youtube in 6 parts, it's worth watching), this is exactly how a veteran pilot describes it in the interview.