LW VS VVS PLANES at 4.10

[DKoor]

Originally Posted by ElAurens

As you can probably tell by my sig pic, I am a huge fan of the Curtiss Hawk series of fighters.

The Hawk 81 through 87 series (P40 to P 40N) were robust aircraft which made them very well suited to the fighter/bomber role that they eventually fell into. The Allison V-1710 12 cylinder engine was probably the toughest inline engine of the war. So much so that even today, the unlimited class air racers that run Merlin engines almost all use the connecting rods from the Allison V-1710 because they are so much stronger than the Rolls-Royce rods are.

Do we see this reflected in the sim?

Hardly.

One rifle caliber hit ahead of the leading edge of the wings and the engine is either stopped instantly, or barely able to make power above idle speed.

And the airframe itself leaves something to be desired. The wings are pretty strong, but fuselage hits always cut multiple control cables (true for many types in game and no doubt reflects the 9 year old+ game engine).

Sorry, I can't stop myself when it comes to my favorite aircraft of all time.

This game is quite funny TBH... in one hand you have aircraft such is LaGG, Fulmar, FW-190 and some others which can soak up tons of LMG ammo directly in prop/engine and still spinning, and on the other hand you have P-40, P-51, Bf-109 and others, which, if you sneeze harder in their engine it seizes at best and will set on fire/explode in few sec in worst case scenario.

It wouldn't bother me really if the difference isn't this huge.

BTW send me some of whatever the topic starter is on, I could use some .

[Ernst]

Do not forget, Focke Wulf had RADIAL engine. Yes, the difference is HUGE.

[ElAurens]

Originally Posted by Ernst

Do not forget, Focke Wulf had RADIAL engine. Yes, the difference is HUGE.

Ever flown a P-47 in game?

Rifle caliber one shot insta-stop of the engine is quite common. Also happens to the F6F.

And then we have the overheating problems that the air cooled radials have in this sim, which is utter nonsense.

[Ernst]

Yes i flied a P-47 and the engine is difficult to stop. Obviously, the engine is not indestructible. Even Focke Wulf engine. About the overheating i agree. Even at high speeds the engine cooling is not good. I have no data to show the engine cooling is wrong, but at medium-high speeds i believe the engine cooling is better in radial ones and in game some inline engines cool much more easy.

I am not necessarily disagree but some data will make you much more truthfull.

[fruitbat]

Originally Posted by ElAurens

Ever flown a P-47 in game?

Rifle caliber one shot insta-stop of the engine is quite common. Also happens to the F6F.

And then we have the overheating problems that the air cooled radials have in this sim, which is utter nonsense.

in the r2800's you get 10 mins before you suffer any engine damage at all, from when overheat message comes on. if at 9:59mins you get the engine overheat message to disappear, and then firewall the engine again, you get 10 mins again from when the engine overheat message appears. rince and repeat. no other engine in game has such a generous time limit, not even close.

other air cooled engines in game are defiantly not so fortunate, for sure though.

[Ernst]

A good place to discuss engines and get some real data:

http://www.ww2aircraft.net/forum/engines/

[SturmKreator]

Originally Posted by Ernst

A good place to discuss engines and get some real data:

http://www.ww2aircraft.net/forum/engines/

This site is very subjective, administrators select the datas that suits them best, they are pro allies. If you want to know search engine research books such as the Ta152-H1 by Dietmar Harmann

[Ernst]

This site is a forum and receive docs by many users. Ok, most of them can be someway biased for both sides but if you search a little you will find very interesting documents.

[Blackdog_kt]

Just a little reminder guys...when talking about overheat in IL2, be also sure to take into account the excessively unrealistic boost/manifold pressure/ata values we are permitted to run in this sim.

In my personal opinion, it's useless discussing how much the overheat modeling in the sim penalizes the player when

a) we can reset it with no damage at all to the engine and
b) we judge overheat effects as excessive but we measure them at boost values that would cook the real engine within seconds

For example, just because the manifold pressure needle goes up to 70 mmHg, doesn't mean it's meant to be ran that way. This is a power reserve generated by superchargers/turbochargers for flying in higher altitudes where the ambient air pressure drops a lot, not normal power to be used on lower altitudes with total impunity.

It's easy to understand that the higher the pressure of the air entering the engine the more dense the air is, which means we have more air for the same volume and thus more power for each "burn" cycle.

Now let's go back to our example. If the engine is rated for a maximum of 50 mmHg of MP on all altitudes then that is already over-boosted on sea level. That means it's more than the pressure of the ambient air that's getting sucked into the engine, which usually varies around 30 mmHg. That's why an engine that's turned off will display about 30 mmHg on the MP gauge, since the gauge reads the ambient air pressure.

But what about the rest of the manifold pressure up until the 70 mmHg mark(and thus available power) that we use in IL2 on sea level with total impunity? Well, in reality that's not meant to be used to go over the 50 mmHG mark that our example hypothetical engine is rated for. In fact, just because an engine is rated for a max power of 50 mmHG doesn't mean it can run it indefinitely, that's where the rated "max continuous power" setting comes in and it's also a bit lower. Let's assume that for our example engine this is rated at 45 mmHG.

A plausible power chart would then look like this:

Take off power: 55 mmHg for no more than one minute

Absolute max power: 50mmHg never to be exceeded (except in take-off), for a time of X minutes or until oil temperature reaches Y degrees or cylinder head temperature reaches Z degrees.

Max continuous power (also called METO power=Max Except for Take Off): 45mmHg, you can run this all day long.

Then we would have a couple of lower settings for:
Climb at 42.5 mmHg
cruise climb (aka slow climb) at 38 mmHg
cruise at 35-38mmHg and finally
slow cruise at 32 mmHg.

It's obvious that the engine's ability to generate reserve manifold pressure up to the 70 mmHg mark comes in handy not to go over the engine limits, but to keep close to them as the ambient air pressure drops. It's not meant to provide a speed boost at sea level or other low altitudes, but to compensate for power loss from ambient air pressure drops at higher ones.

So, what happens if you do exceed it? Hard to say. Engine knock, rapid cylinder head temp rise (aka overheat) or it might even break something if you firewall the throttle to 70mmHg while sitting on the runway.

The way i see it, IL2 is a 10 year old engine that couldn't precisely simulate all this at the time it was created, but the developers also didn't want to let the player run totally unchecked on higher difficulty settings, hence the overheat mechanics in the game.

However, it's pretty clear that it's not much use comparing overheat behaviour in-game without comparing in-game and real-life engine operating data.

[IceFire]

Originally Posted by ElAurens

Ever flown a P-47 in game?

Rifle caliber one shot insta-stop of the engine is quite common. Also happens to the F6F.

And then we have the overheating problems that the air cooled radials have in this sim, which is utter nonsense.

I haven't experienced a insta-stop P-47 engine in a long time. It used to be there and be quite common to the point that it was utterly insane to even think about taking a bit of damage in a P-47 as you'd know that you would have a tough airframe surrounded by a dead engine. But that was a while ago.. Now the P-47 is probably the hardest single engine fighter to bring down. And rightly so!