BF-109K4 and BF-109K4(C3) Incorrect cooling

[Treetop64]

Originally Posted by Pilli

Dear Friend
Look at the water temperature indicator (upper). The lower one is the oil temperature. When the engine is overheated, the radiator flaps in automatic mode are not open as much as possible. you can check: heating the engine in auto mode of hunting, then in manual mode open the radiator. and you will see that the radiator flaps are still open.
Problem is that the radiator in auto mode, with overheating, is not fully opened. I think that it works on the temperature of the oil, and not on the water temperature. but should open when the coolant is overheated!

This is incorrect.

They are both oil temperature gauges. The lower gauge indicates the oil temperature after leaving the oil cooler and entering the engine. The upper gauge indicates the oil temperature after leaving the engine, going to the oil cooler. Besides, the tick mark numerical values would be much higher if the gauge were indicating coolant temperatures.

As far as I can tell, there is no glycol temperature indicator in the bf-109K4 cockpit. Maybe this is accurate historically, or maybe this is another of the the old legacy inconsistencies with cockpit gauges (i.e. the F6F Hellcat, equipped with an air-cooled radial engine, having a "coolant" gauge for engine temperature)

At any rate, the radiator flaps behave normally and as expected per demands placed on the engine.