improved engine/aircraft model

[Saxman]

Yes there is, and I've posted it enough times that I'm not going to repeat it again...and I agree, some small changes in engine management would be nice.

Fine. The next time you exceed the book restrictions on your power settings on a sortie, YOU can sit around in the tower for a week while your imaginary maintenance crew takes your plane off the flight line to go over its engine with a fine-toothed comb.

It's not that I'm against pilots needing to use cruise and reduced power settings on a sortie--I do it already. On climbout I'm on Normal power. At altitude I'm on cruise until enemies are sighted. I'm only on MIL for takeoffs, combats, and emergencies. I'm against introducing such ARTIFICIAL MEASURES as engine overheats into the game to force pilots to do so when they can be easily done with mechanics already existing:

Tighten the leash on bomber drones so they pop if you exceed that aircraft's level cruise.

Increase the distance between bases so fighters have longer to fly.

Increase the fuel burn to 3.0 or even 4.0.

Heck, you could even use the Perk system and add a "Crew Chief Lambasting" cost at the end of a sortie.

Oh, by the way, do you have any SOURCES that indicate all these examples of "engine failure" were due to pilots ignoring or exceeding the manual safety restrictions? Engine failure can be caused by any NUMBER or reasons. Like inhaling a bird, or any number of the thousands of parts getting passed over in routine inspection. It could have been poor manufacture, or caused by poor materials. The B-29's engines had KNOWN mechanical faults that caused a large number of the failures. It's VERY poor form to cite these cases as "evidence" in favor of imposing ARTIFICIAL MECHANICAL LIMITATIONS when you don't have ONE SHRED OF EVIDENCE to ACTUALLY say that a particular case was a matter of pilots not following the book rather than some other source of failure. Because the simple fact is an engine is a complex mechanical object. Complex mechanical objects CAN break even when everything is being operated within its safety limitations.

 

[jdbecks]

jdbecks, you should have quoted the first part of that, where it mentions the gamers, which is more the exact reason why nothing complex would be added...if the tables were turned and more people wanted more complex attributes it would be a different story.

What exactly would you consider within the realm of realistic in forcing toon pile-its to do what real life pilots had to do? You honestly believe airplanes were flown full throttle from the time they took off until they landed hours later? It's not done now with modern airplanes, military or civilian...throttle up to take off, continue until you have attained assigned altitude, level out, throttle back and maintain safe cruising speed.

Safe operation was taught for a reason, because in testing prior to production, and sometimes on the front lines...failures occurred...not 100% of the time but enough to make it into flight instruction manuals as a warning. Aside from the well documented engine failures on the B-29...September 2, 1943, TBD-1 #0353 ditched eight miles off the coast of Miami. Again the cause was engine failure...27 airmen lost in the June 1945 crash of RAF Liberator JT985 flown by a Canadian crew. Bound for the Pacific battlefront, the Liberator went down with engine failure along the Dorset coast...Flight Leader Robert Nelson of the 29th Troop Carrier Squadron who led his flight of three C-47s into combat all alone. They were delayed by an engine failure...(excerpt from a published radio interview with WWII era WASPS - Women Airforce Service Pilots) ETHEL MEYER FINLEY: Thirty-eight women were killed in either training or assignments. Evelyn Sharp out in Oklahoma, that was an engine failure-a P-38. There was one out of Shaw Field. She was out testing a BT-13. They found her; she had crashed. Some of them were pilot error and some were engine problems, and some were collisions. And it was rather a sobering thing, but I don't know that it affected anybody's desire to go out right away again...

I can find this stuff all day long...  


Yes there is, and I've posted it enough times that I'm not going to repeat it again...and I agree, some small changes in engine management would be nice.

but it does not say, the engine failure was due to the pilot using WEP for a minute or more over pilot books recommended usage.

[Old Sport]

Traveler, actually I wouldn't mind seeing some kind of temperature reality related to MP as you suggest. I'm just asking how a temp. restriction could be easily implemented in AH. It doesn't look to me like it could be done too easily. If an engine temperature restriction and an enforced cool off is implemented for running MP, it will have a direct effect on many people in the middle of their dogfight who care less. As you say, people do deal with WEP restriction, so it could  be done, HT could implement it, and it's their decision. So far I don't think they care that much about engine restrictions at present.

In any case, as far as getting the restriction coaded, I'm sure you know much more about it than I do, but wouldn't a temperature gradient have to be developed based on altitude? Low alt, hotter, high alt cooler? And then speed based on prop pitch and manifold press? Probably each engine, in each plane, would have to be coaded. That's some coading. But perhaps some basic coad could take care of the main issues and then tweaked for each plane.

Re: WEP - I think currently once the engine gets in the red from WEP it ceases until the engine cools, and that cool down time apparently is always five minutes for all planes, but I may be wrong on that. During the DGS scenario some time ago there were comments that at 30,000 ft a P-47 should probably cool off faster than on the deck, but I seem to recall they were saying it took the same amount of time.

best.

Every aircraft that I fly in AH and I haven’t flown all of them, but all that have WEP, appear to have it tied to engine temp.  I’ve noticed that once WEP shuts down, if the engine cools, you can run WEP again until the engine reaches max temp.   It also appears that you can do this again and again. 

Perhaps someone from HighTech Creations  can chime in and answer the following question.  Is WEP based on Time or Engine Temp? or a combination of both?

I think the r/l pilots of WWII did what was necessary to stay alive, I know my Dad did.  But they didn’t abuse the equipment, there lives depended on it.  They didn’t zip around the country with the throttle fire walled.     No one did.  They were all faced with the same restrictions on engine performance. 

I am not asking for a more complex engine then already exists.  I’m asking for operational restrictions on that engines performance.   

I don’t believe that new players will fined  it a problem.  They currently have an Engine Performance restriction on WEP and they all seem to manage.   

[gyrene81]

Fine. The next time you exceed the book restrictions on your power settings on a sortie, YOU can sit around in the tower for a week while your imaginary maintenance crew takes your plane off the flight line to go over its engine with a fine-toothed comb.

Why not have that with every day settings...fact is that when a plane returned from a mission, unless there was a military necessity to immediately return to the air upon refueling/rearming, the aircraft were worked on by the mechanics until they were ready for flight...that included going so far as to tear the engine down and rebuild it...but if a spare engine was available, it was put into the plane and tested.

I'm against introducing such ARTIFICIAL MEASURES as engine overheats into the game to force pilots to do so when they can be easily done with mechanics already existing:

Tighten the leash on bomber drones so they pop if you exceed that aircraft's level cruise.

Increase the distance between bases so fighters have longer to fly.

Increase the fuel burn to 3.0 or even 4.0.

Heck, you could even use the Perk system and add a "Crew Chief Lambasting" cost at the end of a sortie.

How is an engine overheating artificial? Please explain that...how is killing bomber drones, or increasing the fuel burn multiplier not artificial?

Oh, by the way, do you have any SOURCES that indicate all these examples of "engine failure" were due to pilots ignoring or exceeding the manual safety restrictions? Engine failure can be caused by any NUMBER or reasons. Like inhaling a bird, or any number of the thousands of parts getting passed over in routine inspection. It could have been poor manufacture, or caused by poor materials. The B-29's engines had KNOWN mechanical faults that caused a large number of the failures. It's VERY poor form to cite these cases as "evidence" in favor of imposing ARTIFICIAL MECHANICAL LIMITATIONS when you don't have ONE SHRED OF EVIDENCE to ACTUALLY say that a particular case was a matter of pilots not following the book rather than some other source of failure. Because the simple fact is an engine is a complex mechanical object. Complex mechanical objects CAN break even when everything is being operated within its safety limitations.

Just so you know - the engine failures on the B-29s came from bad designs on the cowl and cowl flaps that cause engine overheats, particularly during take off and I quote:

These weaknesses combined to make an engine that would overheat regularly at combat weights, particularly during climbs after takeoff. Unseated valves released fuel-air mixtures during engine combustion that acted as a blowtorch against the valve stems. When these burned through the engines disintegrated and caught fire. A fire that was not immediately contained in the forward part of the engine by fire extinguishers became impossible to put out. An accessory housing manufactured of magnesium alloy in the back of the engine would often catch fire and produce heat so intense it burned through the firewall to the main wing spar in no more than 90 seconds, resulting in catastrophic failure of the wing.

This problem would not be fully cured until the aircraft was re-engined with the more powerful Pratt & Whitney R-4360 "Wasp Major" in the B-29D/B-50 program, which arrived too late for World War II. Interim measures included cuffs placed on propeller blades to divert a greater flow of cooling air into the intakes, which had baffles installed to direct a stream of air onto the exhaust valves. Oil flow to the valves was also increased, asbestos baffles installed around rubber push rod fittings to prevent oil loss, thorough pre-flight inspections made to detect unseated valves, and frequent replacement of the uppermost five cylinders (every 25 hours of engine time) and the entire engines (every 75 hours).

And                  

you have NOT ONE SHRED OF EVIDENCE THAT CAN DISPUTE THE FACT THAT ENGINE OVERHEATING CAUSED ENOUGH VARIOUS ENGINE FAILURES TO WARRANT WARNINGS IN FLIGHT MANUALS...I don't need any evidence, it's a known fact, excessive heat in a piston engine regardless of how well it's built can cause component failure...there is always a weak spot...artificial limitations already exist in AH...war emergency power was not something that turned off due to engine temperature then allowed the pilot to re-engage it when the engine cooled down...almost all German, British and U.S. aircraft had cowling and/or radiator flaps to cool the engines off, they don't exist in AH therefore the cooling of the engines from critical temps is artificial...documented fact, the biggest design flaw on early FW190s was the cowling which caused the engine to overheat under normal operating conditions and fail...all aircraft were subject to excessive engine heat if kept at full military power for extended periods of time, it is artificial to allow the aircraft in AH to be flown in full military power and maintain safe operating temperatures.

I can go on...  

but it does not say, the engine failure was due to the pilot using WEP for a minute or more over pilot books recommended usage.

You are quite correct sir...but then none of the aircraft I noted in that had WEP...and I never said engaging WEP a minute or more over flight manual specs would absolutely cause engine failure...not even going to delve into the obvious chain reaction thing there.

[hitech]

Most people do not understand the WEP restrictions. WEP is time based but is shown as temperature.

Planes do not have unlimited wep and all planes are not the same.

The P51D has 10 mins (600 secs) of total wep time, and 5 mins or continues wep time. Would have to look at the cool down rate. The equates to 5 mins wep, if you cool down all the way you get another 5 mins, but then no more.


The 4Fu has 480 secs of total wep with (not positive) 5 mins of max continues.

The system will simulate both consumable wep (i.e. nitrous or water) , or simply rpms and MP above normal mil power.

HiTech

[RASTER]

Fine. The next time you exceed the book restrictions on your power settings on a sortie, YOU can sit around in the tower for a week while your imaginary maintenance crew takes your plane off the flight line to go over its engine with a fine-toothed comb.

Why do you text that Saxman...you know thats unreasonable and it is obvious to you that there are other ways. Why draw things out of proportion. It is not unreasonable to assume that in real life a pilot would use fly another plane while his bird was broken. Why text things which are totally inconsistant with thoughtful reasoning. What the hells wrong with you.

[Saxman]

What the hells wrong with you.

Plenty.

But in this case that's EXACTLY the effect most pilots would see if they pushed their engine beyond the manufacturer's recommended operating limits. Their crew chief would chew them out and the engine would get torn down for a couple weeks while it was checked and rechecked, then put back together a piece at a time to make sure everything is working normally. The concept of an engine ALWAYS failing over the course of a single sortie when operated outside those limits is by FAR less realistic than leaving things the way they are, and if gyrene INSISTS on having a legitimate penalty for pushing the engine, then well that's EXACTLY what the average result would have been.

It's been discussed time and time again, and no one seems to want to listen to the guys who've spent hundreds of hours with these types of engines (Widewing in particular comes to mind. Who do YOU believe? Someone like WW who actually WORKS on these engines, or the programmer for Il-2 or Target: Rabaul?). The impact of pushing the engine in this matter is NOT something that typically caused it to "break" over the course of a single flight. DID it happen occasionally? Possibly, yes. There's a LOT of moving parts in there and it doesn't take much being out of allignment to blow the whole thing. But that usually indicates that something ALREADY wasn't right with the engine when the plane was warming up, not something that developed when the pilot redlined longer than the manufacturer's recommendations allowed.

More often than not THAT sort of failure would have been the result of something that would have accumulated over time. As in multiple sorties. Substandard parts, haphazard maintenance, parts not being changed out in a timely fashion whether due to neglect or lack of availability of replacements. The reason that an engine that exceeded its safety restrictions was torn down and checked out was PRECISELY to prevent these sorts of issues in the first place. Damaged or burned out parts would have been repaired or replaced before the engine was released back into service.

Unless you want to add this sort aircraft maintenance to the game there's NO place for factors such as overheats or power level restrictions for anything other than fuel economy and formation flying.

[gyrene81]

And what you fail to note there Saxman is that you have repeatedly failed to actually read anything that has been stated outside of what you think is reality...you need to look at the bigger picture.

Plenty.

But in this case that's EXACTLY the effect most pilots would see if they pushed their engine beyond the manufacturer's recommended operating limits. Their crew chief would chew them out and the engine would get torn down for a couple weeks while it was checked and rechecked, then put back together a piece at a time to make sure everything is working normally. The concept of an engine ALWAYS failing over the course of a single sortie when operated outside those limits is by FAR less realistic than leaving things the way they are, and if gyrene INSISTS on having a legitimate penalty for pushing the engine, then well that's EXACTLY what the average result would have been.

Nobody said an aircraft engine would ALWAYS fail due to high internal heat when everything else is where it should be...but you can exagerate all you want.

FACT: a pilot was rarely grounded due to engine failure by pushing the engine past recommended limits or broke down for any reason...the engine was usually replaced with a spare new or rebuilt engine if a complete overhaul was required...

FACT: pilots rarely ran their engines up to higher than operational temperatures because they were very aware of the possible results if they did and they had the mechanisms on the aircraft to prevent overheating if they were able to employ them...and it was very rare that they couldn't.

FACT: an engine failure in combat was usually fatal...so few pilots returned and none returned to publicly announce the reason they got shot down was because the engine failed from over heating...if it was a combat situation, and the pilot survived, the failure was attributed to being fired at with a gun...if it was a non-combat situation and the pilot survived it was attributed to "pilot error" or "mechanical failure"...if the plane was able to be brought back to the field and the cause investigated, any sign of oil or coolant leakage, or broken parts, it was noted as the "official cause".

It's been discussed time and time again, and no one seems to want to listen to the guys who've spent hundreds of hours with these types of engines (Widewing in particular comes to mind. Who do YOU believe? Someone like WW who actually WORKS on these engines, or the programmer for Il-2 or Target: Rabaul?). The impact of pushing the engine in this matter is NOT something that typically caused it to "break" over the course of a single flight. DID it happen occasionally? Possibly, yes. There's a LOT of moving parts in there and it doesn't take much being out of allignment to blow the whole thing. But that usually indicates that something ALREADY wasn't right with the engine when the plane was warming up, not something that developed when the pilot redlined longer than the manufacturer's recommendations allowed.

More often than not THAT sort of failure would have been the result of something that would have accumulated over time. As in multiple sorties. Substandard parts, haphazard maintenance, parts not being changed out in a timely fashion whether due to neglect or lack of availability of replacements. The reason that an engine that exceeded its safety restrictions was torn down and checked out was PRECISELY to prevent these sorts of issues in the first place. Damaged or burned out parts would have been repaired or replaced before the engine was released back into service.

Exactly what I have been saying all along...and excessive heat would exacerbate the problem to the point where failure would be more likely to occur, but generally it just caused a minor issue and continued to run until a mechanic found it. You seem to believe that aircraft engines were so perfect they could withstand heat better than a modern engine could, regardless of the circumstances...absolutely not the case...hence the reason the regular overhaul maintenance was set to 50 hours of combat operations and ground crews worked on the engines after every mission.

[Karnak]

You seem to believe that aircraft engines were so perfect they could withstand heat better than a modern engine could, regardless of the circumstances...absolutely not the case...hence the reason the regular overhaul maintenance was set to 50 hours of combat operations and ground crews worked on the engines after every mission.

You on the other hand seem to believe that engines exploded the movement the limitations in the Pilot's Handbook were exceeded.

Or maybe what you said about Saxman is a blatant exaggeration just like my statement is about you.

[Krusty]

Karnak:

Ah models what pilots did, not necessarily what they "could" do... We don't have 20mms on P-40s, but they "could have" carried 'em. We don't have flaps above flap deploy speeds, despite what a pilot "could do" with the levers at any time in flight. Ah follows the 5 minute (or 10 or 3) WEP times based on what pilots were told to in the manuals.

I don't like the idea of just running all the time at full power with no implications. I don't like artificial overheats/engine deaths. Neither is perfect, but I wish we could find some sort of middle ground to at least replicate what the pilots did in the real war (not the combat, just the plane performance).

Personally I'd love to see some sort of system whereby limping home with a damaged plane is possible with reduced power (lower heat) but not possible with the current system. More of a "this would be cool" feature tying radiators, oil, engines, cooling flaps (maybe) and temperature readouts into the damage model. Not all-out, but something.

Gyrene, this is ridiculous man... I stopped reading the OTHER thread you two were harping in because you're both spouting the same ignorant stuff left and right. An engine failure is caused by human error. Either a part was skipped in inspection (a human inspector failed to look) or a part was assembled incorrectly (a human mechanic failed to do it properly, his boss failed to check up on the work) or a part was defective (a human failed at some point in creating the part in a forge, his QA failed to spot it, the crew chiefs failed to check it before installation, any dozens of other people on the logistics chain didn't do their job).

So you want to include random engine failures, then you have to model human error. How about every time you roll a B-17 there's a random chance you'll just crash on the runway because "human error" meant you skipped the checklist for unlocking the tail lock? How about your ground crew made a "human error" and left screwdrivers in your wings and your ammo doesn't feed? How about your weapons officer made a "human error" and locked your DTs or bombs to the rack so they won't ever come off? How about that random kind of crap? I don't see you advocating the "sh** happens" game design model, because frankly it's retarded.

Asking for random engine failures is equally retarded. Failures for a reason is one thing, but the random number-generation pattern you want is wrong and always has been.

You look behind all those engine failures you quoted (I merely skimmed) and you'll find a human error along the chain of thousands and thousands of humans that did something to that plane or that engine, the last one being the pilot/crew of said plane. One of those human chain links screwed something up. It wasn't just fate.

[gyrene81]

You on the other hand seem to believe that engines exploded the movement the limitations in the Pilot's Handbook were exceeded.

Or maybe what you said about Saxman is a blatant exaggeration just like my statement is about you.

I didn't over exaggerate anything about Saxman...or did you miss something.

Unless you want to add this sort aircraft maintenance to the game there's NO place for factors such as overheats or power level restrictions for anything other than fuel economy and formation flying.

Fine. The next time you exceed the book restrictions on your power settings on a sortie, YOU can sit around in the tower for a week while your imaginary maintenance crew takes your plane off the flight line to go over its engine with a fine-toothed comb.

It's VERY poor form to cite these cases as "evidence" in favor of imposing ARTIFICIAL MECHANICAL LIMITATIONS when you don't have ONE SHRED OF EVIDENCE to ACTUALLY say that a particular case was a matter of pilots not following the book rather than some other source of failure. Because the simple fact is an engine is a complex mechanical object. Complex mechanical objects CAN break even when everything is being operated within its safety limitations.

[Karnak]

None of that supports your claim that Saxman thinks WWII engines were perfect.

Random failures, or failures caused by players doing things that would only very rarely have resulted in failures, are not a good thing for the game.  What you are basically saying is that fights in AH, using a Spitfire Mk XVI as an example, should be fought at +7lbs boost, as though it were a restored warbird in 2010, not +18lbs boost, as though it were a top line combat aircraft in 1944.


A method to encourage using cruise settings is another story.  Say, the higher your boost setting the higher the temperature the engine settles on and thus the lower the WEP time you have once you enter combat.  That would enable cruising to the combat area to give you a little more WEP time than somebody who flew to the combat area on MIL settings.

As for bombers, they almost need to have a WEP system put in place that replaces their current MIL settings and their MIL settings in AH to be at one of their higher historical cruise settings.

[Wingnutt]

to address 2 things ive seen regarding WEP in AH.

1: wep is not 5 min across the board.  109s and 190s get 9 min, the japenese AC get.. ???  (never fly them) american AC all get 5 min max continuous AFAIK.

2: WEP run time is based on temp.  once you run her into the red and WEP automatically shuts off, if you let her cool back down you can run WEP again.. till she gets to hot again.
this process can be repeated as many times as you have fuel for.

[gyrene81]

Krusty, I have yet to say anything about random anything in either of these threads...every failure has an underlying cause...and strangely enough you and saxman seem to be overlooking what you are saying.

Your point: defect in manufacturing

Illustration:
Is a piston rod with a hairline fracture likely to break under stress? Yes eventually.
Would repeated exposure to high rpms and excessive heat contribute to it's failure faster than normal operation? Yes

The end result of that failure either way is the engine ceases to function properly either completely or partially.


Your point: human error in maintenance

Illustration:
If a mechanic doesn't secure a head gasket properly is it likely to leak oil or blow out? Yes eventually
Would that failure be exacerbated by repeated exposure to higher than normal rpms and heat? Yes

The end result is a possible engine failure if the problem is not corrected.


Yes human error would be at the root of any failure...and statisically it did not occur often...but to sit here and state that it never happened is total b.s. Whether it happened in testing during the design phase, or during the manufacturing phase, or test flights or in combat...engine failures attributed to higher than normal rpms and heat occurred enough for the manuals to have the warnings in them...and pilots followed those warnings consistently when possible...furthermore it is very well documented that engine heat was one of the biggest hurdles to overcome in aircraft design, especially with fighters...if it wasn't considered a factor nothing would have been changed to prevent engine overheating.



I would not want random total engine failure to be programmed into AH and I have been blatantly clear about that...actually I wouldn't want anything random at all...it would have to be based on percentages...and things like cowl and radiator flaps would have to be incorporated.

[Krusty]

I'm saying the ONLY way to model random engine failures (especially if you exceed WEP time limits) is to model human error. To pretend you want engines failing in-flight, but not the billions of other rarely-ever-happened human errors that caused loss of life, loss of airframe, loss of resources, is 100% hypocritical.

It's like saying "I want to model human error, but only where I want it, to fit my view of how engines should fail, and not in any other way."