I think i'm going to agree on the black exhaust trails being a function of too rich a fuel mixture. However, there are some cases where it might be realistic to see this.
It has been observed by allied pilots, when 109s or 190s suddenly went to full throttle when bounced.
The reason is probably that they didn't have digital computers but analog auto-mixture systems, so it took some time for the mixture to stabilize properly. So, when they went from economy/patrol cruise to full throttle in the blink of an eye sometimes a black trail could be observed, but it went away as soon as the auto-mixture stabilized to the correct value.
I don't remember where i saw it (that's my main problem really, i have a good memory but i don't keep a list of references handy for flight sim forum debates
), but it was cited by experienced allied pilots as a means of understanding when the German fighters advanced to full throttle. Of course, it could probably be used by experienced German pilots as well to mask their change in power settings by advancing the throttle smoothly in order not to give off the tell-tale smoke trail, thus fooling the allied pilot into thinking they were still milling about at cruise settings
09-20-2010, 09:23 PM
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