Engine Management Techniques and ACM- How To ?

[Yeager]

For the guys that have integrated this technique into their flying:

How exactly is it done?  Just either on/off in flight, no throttle to control forward pull?  Just turn engine off to decrease speed and turn on to increase speed or is it a matter of rapidly going on/off on/off  in turning manoevers to gain a bit of nose up?  Ive tried it a little this way and can see some barely tangible advantage but for folks that get reflexive with it, is there a a genuinely workable technique that gives a decided edge?

[Innominate]

Anytime you'd throw your throttle to idle, shutting off your engine will slow you down more.  The wind, instead of not interacting much with the propeller, will be forced to turn the engine, causing more drag.

[Maverick]

Originally posted by Innominate
Anytime you'd throw your throttle to idle, shutting off your engine will slow you down more.  The wind, instead of not interacting much with the propeller, will be forced to turn the engine, causing more drag.

Depends on the angle of the blades to the relative air flow. In other words close to feathering. Turbojets use "beta", going to flat pitch to slow down, regularly and in the air on occasion. Moving to very fine pitch and low RPM's will bring as much of the blades of the prop perpendicular to the airflow as the design will allow. This will increase drag some, to what extent depends on the plane design.

[Fatty]

In testing I've found no difference whatsoever in decelleration between engine idled and engine turned off.

[ccvi]

I think I've watched a 109 expert (i think he is) turning the engine off when flying vertically up. At least that was how the engine sounded when .joined.

[-ammo-]

decelleration  is not the benefit.  Turning tighter is.   Its all in the timing. Its really effective in a tight turnfight with an opponent in a like AC.

wildthing or leviathn know how to do it well, maybe they will chime in.

[Wotan]

well decelleration is what allows the tighter turn.

Like breaking before the turn and accelerating through it.

Not quite that simple but thats basically it.

[Wilbus]

decelleration is not the benefit. Turning tighter is. Its all in the timing. Its really effective in a tight turnfight with an opponent in a like AC.

Worst case of cheating I've heard in AH history, makes it totally useless to have a good FM. Damn cheaters, makes the game boring to fly

[ccvi]

Turning off the engine quickly reduces RPM, doesn't it?

If so, this reduces the angular momentum of the engine's moving parts. The smaller it is, the easier it is to change it's direction = easier to change the direction of the aircraft.

Changing RPM by keyboard is slow, maybe mapping it to a joystick axes works almost as good as turning the engine off?

Anyway, I still think that the engine's angular momentum is overmodeled (as seen in huge gyroscopic effects, especially of the 109s). It feels like the whole engine is spinning, not just the prop and crankshaft. On the other hand, torque effects from changing engine RPM are almost zero.

[Fatty]

I looked at that too ammo, while harder to test the plane behaves very similarly in terms of roll response between engine toggle and throttle chopping (I will chop and goose the throttle all the time trying to hold a turn, gamer or realist?).

I wouldn't be suprised that people feel more comfortable with one over the other, even to the point of swearing their method produces better results (I prefer chopping the throttle because with a twisty that keeps the all in one hand leaving other free for beer and the remote control so you can watch tv at the same time setup rule).  I would be very suprised to see any significant benifit of one over the other.

I am hardly suprised to see people jumping on the latest "no wonder I lost, friggen gamers" excuse.