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Old 06-30-2014, 11:14 PM
Woke Up Dead Woke Up Dead is offline
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Join Date: Dec 2011
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There might be a crib-sheet but it's not necessary, it's not that complicated. There are three simple rules to follow to avoid overheating, in order from most to least important:

Open your radiators. In most planes you can do this in stages, in the Mosquito it's only fully opened or closed. Even in planes with stages to radiators there's not much benefit in trying to fiddle with partially opened rads to get just the right balance of cooling and speed; just keep them all the way open and "save up" some engine cooling for when you're in trouble and need to close them fully for speed.

Prop pitch. If you're not climbing, fighting, or chasing, there's no reason to be at 100% pitch. Reducing pitch to 85% will give you lots of performance and will help you keep engine temperature low. In some planes even reducing just to 95% is enough to get rid of the overheat message.

Throttle. Same as pitch, no reason to be at 100% or more if you're not climbing, chasing, running, or fighting. 95% throttle, 90% pitch, and open rads will keep most planes from overheating on most maps.

Those are the "big three" rules to keep your engine cool. Once you get a hang of those, you can tweak your performance further with these tips:

Maximize fuel mixture. This is mostly for Soviet and some Pacific theater planes; bumping fuel mixture to 120% from takeoff to an altitude where the engine starts to smoke helps to cool it a little.

Climb at a faster speed. Download the "IL2 Compare" tool for best climb speeds of all planes. They typically range from 210km/h to 280km/h for monoplane fighters. Climb 10-20km/h faster to climb almost as fast but with a cooler engine.

Reduce prop pitch during a fast dive. In most planes reducing pitch to 80% in a dive above 400km/h won't slow you down, may even let you go a bit faster, and will cool your engine.

You should have no trouble catching those Heinkels at 90% pitch, 90% throttle, and open radiators in your Mosquito. Does the Mosquito have supercharger stages, and if so, are you switching them at the correct altitudes?
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