Soviet fighters and 4.12

[ElAurens]

Does anyone really think that WW2 pilots, on any side, would fly an entire engagement with the throttle against the stop and WEP or whatever the equivalent would be on?

It's total rubbish.

Real pilots tried to take care of their mounts, as it had to get them home.

They did not have a refly button.

[IceFire]

I would have to agree. I've read a lot of battle reports and it seems a rare thing to me that a pilot would use full power continuously. In most of the cases I can remember they tend to be in fast engagements where they are in a high speed regime and may be pursuing or fleeing.

I did a little test. I like flying 8vs8 engagements in the QMB so that's what I did. La-7 versus Bf109K-4. I haven't flown the K-4 in a long time so I was a bit rusty but I did fairly well. I find the K-4 flies better these days... perhaps? It's really been a long time since I flew the late Bf109s (I did do a 50 mission DGEN over Berlin in the K-4 once). Anyways...

Full power 110% with MW50 engaged and rads on auto. Overheat around the 4.5-5 minute mark. Resisted the urge to drop back power so I let the overheat go. I got a oil leak at 7 minutes, engine started to chew metal at 8 minutes and at 12 minutes it died and I crashed into the ground after being chased by several La-7s. I managed two kills and my wingies got a few before I got separated.

I'd say that's a brutal test. None of the aircraft in IL-2 that I've tested have had much in the way of similar results. Dogfighting at full WEP isn't something I normally do so I had to resist the impulse to drop it back. I'll often run at 102% or thereabouts so as to maximize my time rather than going for the most amount of heat. But usually if you were to watch my throttle in a dogfight I'm all over the place... slowly up and down from 40% to 90%, a couple of minutes at WEP, then back down for cooling. I also usually run rads closed or at 2 and then open during slow speed fighting where the drag hurts me less and the heat hurts me more.

I've very much internalized this whole process so I do it without thinking.

[jermin]

Come on, guys. It has been proved by a deluge of facts in the forum that MW50 was able to be used continuously for 10 minutes at max engine output in WW2. And there sure was time (and quite often, considering German fighters were seriously outnumbered on both fronts) in real battles when the pilot HAD TO fly the entire engagement with max engine power, because he would have been killed by chasing enemies otherwise.

And using quick mission to conduct the test is absolutely valid, since when you join a battle out of cruising, your engine temperature will be much closer to overheat limit compared to around 45 degrees centigrade when the quick mission starts.

Oleg's overheat model accurately represented the endurance of MW50 enabled engines in that the engine would only be damaged after about 10 minutes' continuous max output when tested in the same setup.

[IceFire]

Originally Posted by jermin

Come on, guys. It has been proved by a deluge of facts in the forum that MW50 was able to be used continuously for 10 minutes at max engine output in WW2. And there sure was time (and quite often, considering German fighters were seriously outnumbered on both fronts) in real battles when the pilot HAD TO fly the entire engagement with max engine power, because he would have been killed by chasing enemies otherwise.

And using quick mission to conduct the test is absolutely valid, since when you join a battle out of cruising, your engine temperature will be much closer to overheat limit compared to around 45 degrees centigrade when the quick mission starts.

Oleg's overheat model accurately represented the endurance of MW50 enabled engines in that the engine would only be damaged after about 10 minutes' continuous max output when tested in the same setup.

The 10 minutes thing seems oft repeated but I'd love to how exactly what the requirements were and that part seems to be somewhat vague. At least to me.

I ran flat out at 6000 meters with MW50 engaged and overheat just came on somewhere in the 6-7 minute mark. It could easily run for another while before really having any difficulties. Big difference depending on ambient temperatures at altitude versus down low and flying slowly.