Engines are too strong and reliable.

[Jumoschwanz]

If you read enough about the real aircraft that are included in IL2, and if you are an expert on internal combustion engines, then you know that even on Realistic settings IL2 pilots have it too easy when it comes to engine reliability and management.

I do not have a problem with hitting one button and having engines start because it would be an immense amount of work to research and make this accurate for every aircraft in IL2, but the engine reliability and mechanical strength could easily be made more realistic by making the engines more prone and more quick to overheat and break when they are run under WEP or the settings are wrong for mixture, prop pitch etc...


If an engine's mixture is too lean it will overheat and detonate or ping. Under full power detonation or pinging from a lean mixture could blow an engine is seconds by holing a piston or even cracking a head or cylinder.

A too rich mixture could foul plugs and see an engine put out less power for a while or the rest of a flight.

Too high a mechanical supercharger speed at low altitude and full power could blow an engine in seconds.

When WEP was used on some WWII aircraft it was a last-ditch desperate measure, not something done on ever flight, the use of WEP on some engines meant either a mandatory lengthy inspection or a replacement of the engine before a next flight. A realistic setting could put a delay of so much time before a pilot could fly again because he has to wait for this work to be done on his aircraft before it is used again.

Even on realistic settings much of the combat flying in IL2 sturmovik is done at the highest power setting available with no consequences. Some of the aircraft can fly on maximum WEP indefinitely, which is total crap.

It does happen while flying IL2 that some fights are won when an opponent ruins their engine, but it should happen far more often in light of how much time IL2 pilots spend at the highest power settings available to them, and how many of them neglect engine management.

I have worked on, rebuilt, tuned and studied internal combustion engines for close to half a century.