Oil and radiator control = optimal engine performance?

[gpang788]

Hi all, have been playing this sim for a while but have just recently come to realise after reading other threads that oil and radiator settings seem to affect plane performance i.e. climbouts, speed at various alts?

Pardon my ignorance but can someone explain to me how this happens?

In the 109 for instance, I normally fly it with oil and radiator fully opened no matter what happens.

Is this advisable?

[Jatta Raso]

radiators act as surfaces that stick out the more you open them, which in turn disturb the airflow around them, affecting the aerodynamics of the AC thus reducing it's speed.

that's the case in RL, and portrayed with reasonable accuracy in CLoD. there's no reason to go fully open all the time, just monitor water and oil temps frequently and adjust accordingly.

as a rule of thumb you can go with oil rad at 50-60% but you'll have to work with the water rad much more frequently; worry if the oil rises above 85ºC, water must not exceed 102ºC for long, but you'll soon find that once above 98ºC you'll be struggling not to let it rise; above 105ºC it's an engine wrecker, if you can maintain it bellow 97-96ºC then you're in optimal regime. high RPMs tend to heat up the oil, but reducing RPMs and opening the oil rad up to 4/5 takes care of the issue; the water heats as the engine goes hotter, all you can do if it starts to overheat is go full open and throttle back for a while.

for more info you should take a reading at the many threads discussing this, it's not very difficult to figure

as always, practice makes perfect; happy flying

[gpang788]

Got it now

Thanks Jatta!

[David198502]

my experience is that there isnt any difference in performance whether the rads are fully open or almost closed in the 109s.
i really doubt that its modeled correctly right now.
i reach the same top speed with rads fully opened on deck like i do with rads almost closed.
but of course too high temperatures will kill your engine.

[kestrel79]

I fly with them fully open. I tried to notice any speed difference when I close them in flight and did not.

[gpang788]

Originally Posted by kestrel79

I fly with them fully open. I tried to notice any speed difference when I close them in flight and did not.

Just tried them at various settings, dun think I noticed any difference too.

[5./JG27.Farber]

Oil 5 clicks open, water 40% open (thats two bars on the wing indicator if you can see it.)

[VO101_Tom]

Originally Posted by David198502

my experience is that there isnt any difference in performance whether the rads are fully open or almost closed in the 109s.
i really doubt that its modeled correctly right now.
i reach the same top speed with rads fully opened on deck like i do with rads almost closed.
but of course too high temperatures will kill your engine.

Of course, not good. I read, if the pilot need to air-braking, often opened the radiator instead of flap because they handled it more quickly. This behavior occurred between the half and full opening stage strongly...

[keinmann]

I just tested it in level flight with the 109E-1... I get 402km/h with water/oil rad fully opened, and I get roughly 434km/h with em closed.

[TomcatViP]

Yeah rads are inducing drag. The default's CoD FM is correct.

Of course if you are flying with some amount of side slip or at a low pitch you won't notice any difference

For the correct settings, don't forget that at low alt it would be more difficult to cool oil/glycol fluids in most situation -> the radiator opening would hence have to be wider (a strong point for cruising at alt )

@ Kein : you can reach easily 480/490 level with the E.