Throttle in WWI aircraft?????

[Traveler]

From the visits I made to the Old Rhinebeck Aerodrome as a kid and many times as an adult I was always impressed on the job done to restore and preserve the aircraft they have available.  As a real life pilot one thing that I always found interesting was the fact that the aircraft had no throttles.  That the engine ran at full power from the moment it started until the fuel was cut off.

Some aircraft gave the pilot the ability to controll the power by use of an interrupt switch.  And use of a spark control that allowed the pilot to control how many spark plugs fired and they had the ability just have one cylinder fire to lug the engine around.  Other aircraft just had the interrupt switch wired to the magneto to ground it out.  The engine ran at full power and the pilot cut the magneto on and off.

My point is that Throttles were not part of the aircraft controls until the mid to late 20’s.

[Motherland]

And use of a spark control that allowed the pilot to control how many spark plugs fired and they had the ability just have one cylinder fire to lug the engine around.

This is how the Camel and DR.I work in game, as was addressed in the readme.

From what I understand, inline engined aircraft (e.g. the F2B and D.VII) had normal throttles.

[Treize69]

From the visits I made to the Old Rhinebeck Aerodrome as a kid and many times as an adult I was always impressed on the job done to restore and preserve the aircraft they have available.  As a real life pilot one thing that I always found interesting was the fact that the aircraft had no throttles.  That the engine ran at full power from the moment it started until the fuel was cut off.

Some aircraft gave the pilot the ability to controll the power by use of an interrupt switch.  And use of a spark control that allowed the pilot to control how many spark plugs fired and they had the ability just have one cylinder fire to lug the engine around.  Other aircraft just had the interrupt switch wired to the magneto to ground it out.  The engine ran at full power and the pilot cut the magneto on and off.

My point is that Throttles were not part of the aircraft controls until the mid to late 20’s.

 

They had throttles. The water cooled ones had the same throttle setup that they do today, and the rotaries had an ignition selector that allowed you to control the motors speed by selecting how many cylinders fired on each revolution.

[kvuo75]

This is how the Camel and DR.I work in game, as was addressed in the readme.

people have to actually read it though 

These new WW1 planes use fixed pitch propellers instead of the constant speed propellers found on all the other planes in Aces High.  Because they can't adjust their pitch, the engine RPM will speed up and slow down according to your airspeed and throttle setting.  This makes it very easy to overspeed your engine in a full power dive.  You will know when you are overspeeding your engine because your tachometer will be in the red and your engine will begin to make a bad sound.  Immediately reduce your throttle and/or airspeed to keep from blowing your engine.  Alternatively, there is an option in your flight preferences for a WW1 Engine Governor.  This will limit your engine to its nominal rating and prevent you from overspeeding it in most conditions.  The advantage to not using the governor is that you can run your RPM higher than the governor giving you more power in high rpm situations.  The governor is defaulted to on.

The Dr.I and the F.1 Camel both use rotary engines.  The large spinning mass of these engines makes gyroscopic precession a large factor in how these planes fly.  With the clockwise rotating engines of these planes, a pitch up movement will create a yaw to the right, a pitch down movement will create a yaw to the left, a yaw to the left will create a pitch down and a yaw to the right will create a pitch up.  Throttle control for these planes will just cut out cylinders from the firing sequence so it will work in steps instead of giving you smooth control through the entire range.

[Baumer]

Having been to Rhinebeck several times I can understand where Travers coming from.

I read and understand the release notes, the main issue is that in game they still sound very smooth and "throttled". If you have been to Rhinebeck and hear the actual rotary engines they sound very different when the cylinders are cut out.

The rotary engines are modeled correctly it's just that the sounds are not accurate. I suspect it world be much more complicated to manipulate the eng.wav for partial throttle on a rotary then just simply changing the playback speed. Maybe someday in the future it can be addressed, but I suspect it will be a while.

As a side note, I configured a button on my stick as the engine on/off switch and use that instead of the throttle (leave it at 100%) for the Dr.1 and F.1 and it works great!   

[Treize69]

This is what a rotary is supposed to sound like.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rH2yqCKf7UI

[Charge]

"The rotary engines are modeled correctly it's just that the sounds are not accurate. I suspect it world be much more complicated to manipulate the eng.wav for partial throttle on a rotary then just simply changing the playback speed. Maybe someday in the future it can be addressed, but I suspect it will be a while."

Well I have to say that I did expect the engine sounds to be accurate on rotaries and to have the "blip" switch... Not as essential as the correctly modeled "throttle", which we have, but it would have added a very nice flavour.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotary_engine

-C+

[LesterBoffo]

 Please, do some more research, there were air volume and fuel mixture quadrants on the later rotaries.  Most of the Le Rhone and Clergets could be throttled to about 66~50%.  The 160 Gnome was the only rotary engine using partial cylinder ignition cut-out

[Saurdaukar]

I'm sure you'll see plenty of sound packs for WWI AC in the coming weeks.

[VonMessa]

This is what a rotary is supposed to sound like.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rH2yqCKf7UI

I used to have a Dodge Omni that sounded like that....... 

[Iron_Cross]

There is the "E" key on your keyboard that shuts the engine down/restarts it.  It does make the proper "noise", and is like the "blip" switch in the F1/Dr. 1.  There, more engine management, and historical accuracy all in one simple button.

EDIT: Also good for taking someone by surprise when they are relying on sound rather than having their head on a swivel, for SA.

[Ghosth]

I also recomend setting a easy to reach button on joystick to "blip" the motor.
Can be very helpfull at times.

[Westy]

Is "Blip" just turning the engine off/on or something else altogether?

Thanks!

[LesterBoffo]

Is "Blip" just turning the engine off/on or something else altogether?

Thanks!

 Yes it's just a momentary kill button on the joystick, shuts the ignition off as long as you hold it down.   I'm not sure if you guys have the parameter of "bounce" to map to your joystick set up so it works like a momentary off switch.  Most sims using "E" for engines are one press >"on", one press >"off"  That's a pain to use as a blip switch.

[Westy]

Ahhh.  Got an X-45 setup and I figure I can create a WWI profile with the "blip"
being where the WEP usually would be.

thanks!