Guys, I seriously think you should consider that the threshold that triggers displaying the HUD Engine Overheat message is too conservative.

I fly by the engine gauges only and can push the aircraft harder now than I could in previous versions of the game. In all of the aircraft that I've flown so for in v4.11 the engine gauges show much more plausible indications, including in the LaGG-3 Series 4, I-16 Mk18 and Mk24, I-153, Bf-109s E through G2, P-40 B and C, F3F-3 and -4, and the F4-U. Using the gauges you can now monitor engine condition more reliably than you could in past versions of the game.

That's true, the overheat message comes on as soon as there is a chance to damage the engine. A little bit of overheat however has a very small chance to damage the engine at all.

If you fly full power / max. pitch with radiator open in high speed level flight, you can probably fly for a long time before anything happens.

You shouldn't sit on the runway having the engine maxed out, it's going to blow fairly quickly.

Yes, the "Engine overheat" message should not let you panic imidiatly. It just should let your start to think about temperature. If you learn to handle the tolerances, then you will be able to use a small advantage in combat. ;-)

However - no risk no fun. :-D

Update: With the same setup, the time at which the overheating message pops up for La-7 3XB-20 and P-51D-20NA is 1 min 34 seconds and 1 min 18 seconds.

But please bear in mind that Bf-109 and P-51 have automatic radiators enabled while the radiator of La-7 is set to closed by default.

Will do more test and report back.

you can all ways turn the over-heating off :-|

Jermin. Some advice. I wouldn't waste your time stop watching how long it takes to overheat each plane in the game. First off...it will be different every map and every sortie! It's no longer as static...more dynamic based on how you fly and the map.

Also, FW190 was known to have overheating issues. That's why they designed special cowling. So 190, you may need to leave rads open more so than others...but it holds it's energy well even with open rad. Go by the ata's.

Unfortunately, this is not true. The overheat time for a specific plane is constant regardless of sorties. It is comparable between different planes.

Thanks for your advice. But I was referring to Bf-109s.

ok 109. my mistake.

Comparing water cooled inline engine planes to air cooled radial engines all different planes with different designs and cooling efficiencies modeled. It was already pointed out in this thread that oil temp is function of "oil in" and "oil out" and those functions are all dependent on map pressure, rpms, fuel mixtures, airspeeds and radiator/cowling positions (open, partially opened or closed) and for water cooled engines would be dependent on efficiency of the in/out of the water temps (so if you take a bullet damage there you should be more prone to overheat!) and air-cooled on the heat exchangers/oil sump/pump and don't forget the ambient temp of the map. If your able to capture all those dynamic functions in a stop watch run and draw a reasonable conclusion???:confused:

I don't want to come off as self-promoting, but I posted this in another thread and thought it would be worthwhile to post here, too:

"Generally speaking, to get the most performance out of any engine in the sim for the longest practical time, you want to set a high manifold pressure, combined with a moderately reduced RPM, and as high a mixture as practical for a given altitude. Also, you may want to open the radiator one or two steps. Moreover, you want to fly in a manner that keeps your speed as high as possible - the more air that is blasting into the radiator for liquid-cooled engines, and through the cylinder head fins for air cooled engines, the cooler your engine will run. Again, this is a general rule of thumb for managing engines during combat in the game.

Can't stress this enough, but I highly recommend turning off HUD messages, and get used to reading the gauges to monitor the engine. With v4.11 you can do that with confidence now that the gauges show what they should show. I've said it many times and I'll say it again: the triggering of the ENGINE OVERHEAT message is way too conservative. I've long flown without HUD messages and have paid close attention to the gauges, and have gotten good performance out of the engines on warm and cold maps. Once I turned on HUD messages however, I found that the ENGINE OVERHEAT message came on far sooner than I would have otherwise started worrying about the condition of the engine. I just turned it off again and haven't used it since. If I used the ENGINE OVERHEAT message as a guide to start trimming back on engine settings, I would never get any decent performance out of the machine.

Learn to use the gauges, throttle, RPMs, manifold pressure, and radiator; not be a slave to the OVERHEAT message; practice consistently, and I promise you will get more performance out of your plane."

qft!