[Birdman86]

There are actually many engine damage options with prop still rotating but not much power, so which one do you mean with that windmilling engine?
a) inoperable but not jammed engine that is completely stopped in low speed, rotetes slowly with more airspeed and in high speed windmills so fast that it seems to run but bleeds a lot of energy instead
b) engine with magneto failure that behaves like above unless you switch on only the working magneto and manage to restart the engine
c) engine still running but with almost no power left after a lot of hits or just before stopping due to water or oil leak
d) engine with failed prop pitch control that in some planes runs with really low RPM and with little power in low speed but is still running properly and brings you home surprisingly fast if you keep speed up to have a bit higher RPM

With option c the engine is not really dead but almost and it is not really windmilling but running at low RPM and power instead. In this case the prop doesn't bleed energy and you can glide further than with jammed engine and a lot further if there is still some power left. With smoking engine or radiator you'll soon get from c to a, but without smoke you'll stay in option c until ditching.

However, with option a the prop bleeds energy while windmilling and you can't glide as far as with jammed engine but you can reduce the energy loss with low speed. With real windmilling engine in option a and possibly also with jammed engine you can reduce the drag by using 0% prop pitch, but I haven't tested this in game. However, if you want, you can test gliding with engine or magnetos off and measure the distance with 100% and 0% prop pitch in otherwise identical glide.



I also got a couple ideas to improve the engine damage modeling in IL-2:

- Is it possible to simulate coolant leaks better? I mean we could have different effects for oil and coolant leaks together with proper overheating effect in case of coolant leaks. I also hope that all planes with liquid cooling could have proper radiator hitboxes and possibly also realistic options to stop the coolant leak.

- Could we have some random jamming of damaged engines? That would simulate the possible jams when some major parts fail later due to vibration or local overheating with broken cooling or lubrication. That would make returning to base with damaged engine harder and more exciting. The probability of sudden jam could be made a lot higher for high RPM and power settings so that you would have to handle the damaged engine carefully and attempts to fight with damaged engine could end with jammed engine.



I think that the engine damage modeling is so different in different planes because sizes of hitboxes for different engine parts may vary, some of the hitboxes may be missing, and the hitboxes are not always coded to trigger similar damage when hit. Standardizing it all is not really a good option because real planes and engines also had differences, but maybe reworking the hitboxes and damage code of some planes and adding some missing damage options wouldn't be too much work.