Engine Fires

[colmbo]

    They Should Not kill the aircraft…..

An uncontrolled engine fire will destroy the airplane, not just cause the engine to fail.  I remember talk in the aviation community here after a DC-6 had an engine fire, there was a delay getting on the ground and the wing failed in flight where the guys operating the airplane said they figured on 6 minutes of burn time before the wing would fail.  Not concrete info I admit, but have no doubt the aluminum will be destroyed by the fire.

[colmbo]

that's what I'd figure.. was it actually ever done successfully outside of the movies?

I dunno, but have seen many photos/movies of aircraft diving to earth with an ever increasing flame.

Suffice to say if I'm ever on fire I'm going to descend as quickly as possible…..so I can get out and run away from the fire.

[shotgunneeley]

As it stands, the only incentive to feather a damaged engine in game would be an attempt to direct an aircraft with no flight controls. If you get an oil hit, we all just run the engine full tilt until it quits on its own. I think it would be a cool extra fearure to handle damage control in order to prevent further structural failure. Then again, I hardly ever recieve damage to a buff engine as i always blow up or loose the wing before i would ever have to deal with a damaged engine.

[Reaper90]

It depends on the source of the fire, what's feeding it and at what rate.

I remember reading in Lagg and Lavochkin Aces of World War 2 by George Mellinger, p.64, a report of a sortie by Russian Ace Ivan Kozhedub  where he suffered a fuel tank fire in his starboard wing after taking fire from the rear gunner of a Ju87 he had just downed. Unwilling to bail out over German territory and face capture, he "resolved to crash his burning aircraft into a German gun emplacement. However, at the very last minute the dive extinguished the fire and Kozhedub pulled out of his 'suicide attack' with only feet to spare."

[earl1937]

that's what I'd figure.. was it actually ever done successfully outside of the movies?

Most B-29 engine fires were "induction fires" and a couple of "put-outs" were used to extinguish the fire. Problem was the accessory section at the rear of the engine! If it caught fire, then you have a major problem, even though we had 4 "fire extinguisher" bottles we could blow and most times it worked just fine. I had only one induction fire in 924 hours in the old bird and we "blew" it out with throttle!
Having said that, Boeing engineers, coupled with engine manufacture engineers, designed a special "dynifocal" made from magnesium, with the plan in place, with an accessory fire which you could not put out, the dynifocals would burn in two and the engine would actually fall off the wing. I only saw one aircraft land at Tinian with #4 engine hanging down at about a 20 degree angle, because the two top dynifocals burned into, but the bottom ones did not, hence the engine crushed the dynifocal extention arms and was resting against the fire wall when they landed.

[bozon]

that's what I'd figure.. was it actually ever done successfully outside of the movies?

Many mosquitoes were able to recover from an engine fire and make it home on one engine, and that is in a plane made of wood. MacIntosh in his most excellent book "terror in the starboard seat" describes it happening twice, if I recall correctly. They did not put the fire out by diving though.

[BnZs]

correct about the fuel fires, and there is nothing wrong with the 50 cals. A quick burst at CONVERGENCE will take the wing off any plane.

Correct. And a quick burst of cannons at CONVERGENCE will take the wing off even faster, leaving one to ponder why the air forces of a major nation were so "dumb" as to stick with heavy MGs for the duration of the war instead of  switching to cannons. Or maybe it only seems "dumb" until you realize that those banks of MGs threw a lot more bullets into the air which could make a lot more holes which means a lot more chances of hitting something that would take a fighter out of combat. So you are entirely correct, there is nothing wrong the .50s themselves, they simply don't have as much stuff to poke holes in with the AH damage model, which in turn blunts their effectiveness relative to weapons better at sawing off wings in-game.

[The Fugitive]

Correct. And a quick burst of cannons at CONVERGENCE will take the wing off even faster, leaving one to ponder why the air forces of a major nation were so "dumb" as to stick with heavy MGs for the duration of the war instead of  switching to cannons. Or maybe it only seems "dumb" until you realize that those banks of MGs threw a lot more bullets into the air which could make a lot more holes which means a lot more chances of hitting something that would take a fighter out of combat. So you are entirely correct, there is nothing wrong the .50s themselves, they simply don't have as much stuff to poke holes in with the AH damage model, which in turn blunts their effectiveness relative to weapons better at sawing off wings in-game.

It's hard to tell what your saying sometimes as you mix "real life" WWII with "cartoon life" computer game.

The OP was complaining that to 50 cals in the game are neutered and ineffective. I posted they are not and that if you hit at convergence they are very effective. Check out this pony film...

http://www.mediafire.com/download/5c72lgl1q7992wh/51lulz.ahf

It looks like he has very little problem downing planes with his poor sub-standard 50 cals.

[BnZs]

It's hard to tell what your saying sometimes as you mix "real life" WWII with "cartoon life" computer game.

The OP was complaining that to 50 cals in the game are neutered and ineffective. I posted they are not and that if you hit at convergence they are very effective. Check out this pony film...

http://www.mediafire.com/download/5c72lgl1q7992wh/51lulz.ahf

It looks like he has very little problem downing planes with his poor sub-standard 50 cals.

I do *not* believe the .50s are neutered in the sense of how much pure weight of damage they throw out, not at all. I recognize that they saw off wings at least as easily in game as they seem to in gun camera footage. My point is that since bullets are able to pass clean through most parts of airplanes doing no harm whatsoever with our damage model UNTIL a wing or tail falls off, the efficacy of banks of .50s (or .303s for that matter) is reduced.

This is a computer game that attempts to model real-life equipment. It does not attempt to model WWII combat behavior, nor would it be practical to do so. Thus saying "This isn't WWII" is perfectly legitimate when discussing some things, like player behavior, IOW Spits crossing swords with P-51s and the like. OTOH, when discussing the modeling of equipment comparisons between game and WWII are relevant, because modeling the *equipment* of WWII is the objective here.

[bozon]

Correct. And a quick burst of cannons at CONVERGENCE will take the wing off even faster, leaving one to ponder why the air forces of a major nation were so "dumb" as to stick with heavy MGs for the duration of the war instead of  switching to cannons. Or maybe it only seems "dumb" until you realize that those banks of MGs threw a lot more bullets into the air which could make a lot more holes which means a lot more chances of hitting something that would take a fighter out of combat.

Decisions such as this (sticking to 0.5s) have more to them then pure destruction power. Reliability and logistics are big big things that tend to be ignored in such forum discussions though they carried a lot of weight in decision making. From logistics and reliability (including things like costs, field servicing, redundancy, availability etc.) point of view, the 0.5s made a lot of sense, especially since pilots did not complain much that 6 or 8 0.5s were not enough.

I do *not* believe the .50s are neutered in the sense of how much pure weight of damage they throw out, not at all. I recognize that they saw off wings at least as easily in game as they seem to in gun camera footage. My point is that since bullets are able to pass clean through most parts of airplanes doing no harm whatsoever with our damage model UNTIL a wing or tail falls off, the efficacy of banks of .50s (or .303s for that matter) is reduced.

That is probably true. Damage modeling has always been the weakest point in this game, and the all-or-nothing damage does tend to favor damage coming in the form of a small number of heavy hits, over 1000 paper cuts.

[The Fugitive]

I do *not* believe the .50s are neutered in the sense of how much pure weight of damage they throw out, not at all. I recognize that they saw off wings at least as easily in game as they seem to in gun camera footage. My point is that since bullets are able to pass clean through most parts of airplanes doing no harm whatsoever with our damage model UNTIL a wing or tail falls off, the efficacy of banks of .50s (or .303s for that matter) is reduced.

This is a computer game that attempts to model real-life equipment. It does not attempt to model WWII combat behavior, nor would it be practical to do so. Thus saying "This isn't WWII" is perfectly legitimate when discussing some things, like player behavior, IOW Spits crossing swords with P-51s and the like. OTOH, when discussing the modeling of equipment comparisons between game and WWII are relevant, because modeling the *equipment* of WWII is the objective here.

No it's not. In real life there was the chance at cutting cables, fuel and hydraulic lines, damage/fuse hinges turnbuckles and any other moving part.

In the game there are zones that count damage points. If we are lucky 10-15 zones, not hundreds that can take damage. Sure it would be great if there were as many as things that could be damaged in real life but like the "trees flipping tanks" thread there has to be some give and take. HTC has to decide where there time and effort is best used.

People have to learn how to play the game WITH IN the parameters that the game is built and not keep looking for ways to "adjust" the game to explain their "suckage".

[BnZs]

No it's not.

also is exactly what aces high main arena play does, it tries to accurately produce a simulation of WWII equipment. And does not try to simulate wwii. WWII was already been fought. We simply make a game that use wwii equipment.




HiTech

[BnZs]

A nice list of rational considerations Bozon. My point if I have not made it clear is that if WWII gun effectiveness had exactly paralleled the results seen in this game, anything other than copying the Hispano 20MM would have been an irrational choice. Exhibit A: The C-Hog. In-game its effectiveness was a revelation that caused the invention of perk prices. In the war, nothing of the sort.

Decisions such as this (sticking to 0.5s) have more to them then pure destruction power. Reliability and logistics are big big things that tend to be ignored in such forum discussions though they carried a lot of weight in decision making. From logistics and reliability (including things like costs, field servicing, redundancy, availability etc.) point of view, the 0.5s made a lot of sense, especially since pilots did not complain much that 6 or 8 0.5s were not enough.
That is probably true. Damage modeling has always been the weakest point in this game, and the all-or-nothing damage does tend to favor damage coming in the form of a small number of heavy hits, over 1000 paper cuts.

[The Fugitive]

Yup, Hitech says they TRY, but as this is a computer game it is NOT real life. You can only go so far....at this time anyway with how close you can get to that reality.

The point is the damage model does NOT accurately model the WWII equipment. 

[Zoney]

Thank you for the bit of history Earl  <S>