Definition of Flight Simming

[RASTER]

@ gyrene81

What you say about Wep and throttle settings is absolutely correct but each plane has its own temperature/wear/stress parameters. This could be modeled and some say it should be modeled but as you know this already and probably better than I, what do you think it would be like to have your parameters used as opposed to the one button push (p). Would it put some planes out of popularity and bring others forward? Would that improve the game. Would it change the game in a way which you would not enjoy. IMO, I would like some variation on the one button but the complexity which you suggest and are fully knowledgable of, this may be more than I could want in my wish list.

What did you mean by "my assertion the instrument detail in Targetware is b.s." It was my attempt to state that TW cockpits were damn good.

[gyrene81]

What did you mean by "my assertion the instrument detail in Targetware is b.s." It was my attempt to state that TW cockpits were damn good.

What I mean is the Targeware instrument panel detail is no better nor worse than AH...there are some differences in what is shown but the graphical detail is pretty much the same...I've seen it...impressive but only noteworthy of comparison to IL2 and not much better than AH...if your computer can handle it, run 1024 textures with the hi res texture pack in AH...noticeable difference.

One thing we have to remember when we immerse ourselves into our cyber war...perspective...real life vs cyber world...we're not going to be able to see the level of detail with the cyber eyeballs of our pile-it on a 22 inch monitor that our real life eyeballs can see in our real world. In the real world looking at something 18 inches from your face is different than looking at something 6 feet away, but our eyes can adjust and focus to bring that detail information to our brains...in the cyber world of these flight sims, our pile-it is slightly myopic at best.


And yes I do agree with that engaging WEP should be more than just pushing a button or key on the keyboard...but, unless you had a joystick with a throttle that had an "extra notch" I don't see any other practical way without making it too difficult for the novice.

[Krusty]

Very very few planes in WW2 used a nitrous system (GM-1 for the germans is the only one I can think of, suitable only above 30,000 feet or so).

All other additives are cooling agents to lower temperatures (yes, LOWER them!) so more compression could be made without premature detonation. On top of that, MANY "war emergency power" settings require no additives, they simply increase the RPM and MAP beyond a certain limited point.

So, no... Simply running an engine for 5 minutes on a WEP setting will never, in any case, destroy the engine like most other sims pretend. It's as artificial as any other decision in a computer game.

As for your cockpits argument: Nobody in TW uses the instruments, they all use debug console for every bit of info. I doubt they ever look at the cockpit except for the gunsight. In IL2 nobody uses the cockpit, either! They either turn it off to get the nice handy ctrl-f1 view, or they use the speed bar for heading, alt, and speed. Why? Because they have stupidly designed layouts that don't give you any of the info you need. [EDIT: As mentioned in real life it may work, but on a computer screen it's retarded] Hell, IL2 even brags that their new BOB game is going to have "realistic" compasses that swing back and forth 90 degrees never telling you what course you're really on.

Riiiiiight.

Because in WW2 they really flew north when they were trying to go east every time, right?

[gyrene81]

Very very few planes in WW2 used a nitrous system (GM-1 for the germans is the only one I can think of, suitable only above 30,000 feet or so).

TA152H according to documentation only because it really enhanced high alt performance...also had the methanol injection system.

So, no... Simply running an engine for 5 minutes on a WEP setting will never, in any case, destroy the engine like most other sims pretend. It's as artificial as any other decision in a computer game.

You're wrong:
P-51 Pilot Manual Wep Instructions

[Krusty]

Sorry Gyrene, do some more reading on the subject. It could risk damaging it, but not in a "oh no, it stopped running!" kind of way, more like "dammit, the ground crew has to take this apart and look for scratches when I get home, they may have to overhaul it" -- it was a maintenance issue more than "you'll go boom" issue.

EDIT: the 152H-1 had a GM-1 system, as I mentioned, but AH doesn't currently have the power boost for GM-1 added (so it would seem) above a certain alt.

[gyrene81]

Sorry Gyrene, do some more reading on the subject. It could risk damaging it, but not in a "oh no, it stopped running!" kind of way, more like "dammit, the ground crew has to take this apart and look for scratches when I get home, they may have to overhaul it" -- it was a maintenance issue more than "you'll go boom" issue.

Well, the few items I have been able to find regarding engine failures associated with engaging WEP or turbo boost systems indicated there were enough engine failures in flight to cause concern...nothing like the reaction of a blower igniting off a dragster...but enough that the engine failed in flight and forced the pilot to either bail or emergency land.

Everything I've found shows that SOP for ground crews was that if that WEP system was engaged, the engine was overhauled before that plane left the ground again, except in emergency situations...by all accounts, the Germans weren't so picky about engine maintenance as the U.S. was...

[Krusty]

Funny, since most accounts I've heard about include running spitfires' engines for half an hour at WEP settings with no detrimental factors, the fact that one Wright engine (off the F4u or P-47? I can't recall) was run for hours well past "max" settings with no faults.

In general, there were a lot of things that could fail in an engine.. But if it was working, using WEP wouldn't make it fail any faster.

[BnZs]

Funny, since most accounts I've heard about include running spitfires' engines for half an hour at WEP settings with no detrimental factors, the fact that one Wright engine (off the F4u or P-47? I can't recall) was run for hours well past "max" settings with no faults.

In general, there were a lot of things that could fail in an engine.. But if it was working, using WEP wouldn't make it fail any faster.

Heresy! It was a Pratt And Whitney!!! 

[RASTER]

In general, there were a lot of things that could fail in an engine.. But if it was working, using WEP wouldn't make it fail any faster.

Back in the 40's the strengths of materials were not as well understood as they are today. Many factors we know now and the intense calculations that can be made using computers were not in the hands of the engineers in the 40s. That an engine is working has nothing to do with when it will fail. They changed a lot of spark plugs and you know what destroys spark plugs don't you. Boost has often been a factor for increasing power. Boost causes a lot of heat and increases the compression pressure. This heat can cause the engine to detonate before it reaches the top of the cylinder, the result can often be melting of the piston tops which cause a hell of a lot of smoke and lost power in that cylinder. The heat also melts the valves and then they don't close well. This also is lost power. Boost also heats up the plugs and burns off the electrodes. So if you use too much boost you can get a lot more power but the heat will destroy the combustion chamber. The way around this is higher octane fuels. This prevents the engine from dieseling which is the same combustion by heat induced pressure not spark. This high octane does not relieve the main crank bearings from being overstressed. The increased force smashes the hell out of the bearings and very soon the thing starts to bang like a hammer on your firewall. After a few minutes of this, if you don't throttle back, then a rod goes through the crankcase along with other parts of the combustion chamber and this can burst a fuel line, crack a manifold and then you have a fire. So no matter what you do, if you put too much stress on the crank you could get a rod out the block and that would be mildly explosive. If the engine is running as you say, you have no way of knowing if the bearings are starting to go, if carbon has built up somewhere and plugged an oil way. When you bang that engine up to full emergency power, that's when you find out that carbon has plugged an oilway and although it was fine at low pressure it will soon fail. Your suggestion that using wep will not make an engine fail anysooner sort of angers me.   

[Karnak]

Very very few planes in WW2 used a nitrous system (GM-1 for the germans is the only one I can think of, suitable only above 30,000 feet or so).

Mosquito NF.Mk XIX used nitrous oxide to get decent altitude performance out of Merlin 25s.

[Krusty]

Very interesting Karnak!

That makes 2 systems on rare variants heheh

BnZ, my bad! lol! You caught me. Couldn't remember which engine.

Raster... General use will make an engine fail eventually without maintenance. No matter how cool it is. Using the wrong oil can kill it. Cooling it off too fast can crack it.. There's billions of things that can kill an engine. If it's running well enough to have excellent power at full throttle, it won't fail, burst, explode, or anything after 5 minutes of WEP additives or WEP throttle/RPM settings. I'm familiar with many of the points you outlined, and you're right.

Hell you're taking millions of chances with the nerves in your body just taking one step heel-to-toe... You run the risk of shattering your bones or killing yourself so many different ways in just a single step... But more often than not you take the step and nothing "fails." Assuming you can take the steps fine, you can walk fine. You're not going to explode and have your knees shatter if you jog for a couple minutes. You might get tired more, and need an aspirin tomorrow (read: overhaul after the sortie), but you can do it. Just an analogy.

[RASTER]

This thread, when I started it, was an attempt to illustrate that on-line air combat sims can go a long way to clear up many of the misconceptions that otherwise good flight sim pilots have about the representative aircraft they are using. As I said, rather than expand into ground based combat activities which could be controlled by the airbattle but simulated by AI, I would prefer to see more effort placed on individual specific flight controls such as the WEP.

There is nothing more hilarious to real pilots, and certainly embarrassing to everyone, than to hear one of the worlds top combat simulation pilots defend his lack of knowledge concerning the representative aircraft he pilots on-line. Its a shadow of ignorance the reflects on the entire flight sim community. My joystick, (which is currently in for repairs ) is older than some of the people I have piloted with on line. Air combat simulation is something I do and I expect I will continue to do it as I grow older. There is little chance that I will ever own one of these vintage aircraft although I have had the stick and been along for aerobatic maneuvers, I will never get to shoot people. Never in real life. But I can do it in simulation and that's just fine with me. What I don't like is seeing the air combat simulation crown going to some hacker or some child who knows nothing about the aircraft he pilots simply because air combat simulation is a game and not a simulation. There are so many aircombat simulation pilots who have disappointing misconceptions about these planes and in this instance, with reliability, regardless of how debilitating it was on performance, reliability was essential to allied aircraft design. Try crossing the Atlantic ocean in a 109. But this as well as other aspects of aircombat go unrepresented or its the agonizing alternative, misrepresented. Thats not my beef only my wish. As time passes, for those of us who have been simming for well over a decade...(seems to be more than I remember) there is a need for more and that more for some is not to see the fidelity of every flight simulation trashed to include ground operations. Certainly I enjoy ground operations at times but there has to be somewhere to go for good aircombat. It can be AH or somewhere else.  

Note to Karnak, what speed would that give the mossie, 330mph?

[RASTER]

Just on the off chance someone thinks only allied aircraft were reliable, consider Jiro's A6M with long range tanks. The motors although little more that 600hp made the aircraft more than a match and its reliability allowed it to attack locations thought impossible.

Krusty, do you mean "Shock Cooling" when you power down and take a steep dive to cool the engine rapidly...is there some reason not to do that, is that what you mean? Lucky you, nothing fails until you land and turn off the engine.

[jdbecks]

Back in the 40's the strengths of materials were not as well understood as they are today. Many factors we know now and the intense calculations that can be made using computers were not in the hands of the engineers in the 40s. That an engine is working has nothing to do with when it will fail. They changed a lot of spark plugs and you know what destroys spark plugs don't you. Boost has often been a factor for increasing power. Boost causes a lot of heat and increases the compression pressure. This heat can cause the engine to detonate before it reaches the top of the cylinder, the result can often be melting of the piston tops which cause a hell of a lot of smoke and lost power in that cylinder. The heat also melts the valves and then they don't close well. This also is lost power. Boost also heats up the plugs and burns off the electrodes. So if you use too much boost you can get a lot more power but the heat will destroy the combustion chamber. The way around this is higher octane fuels. This prevents the engine from dieseling which is the same combustion by heat induced pressure not spark. This high octane does not relieve the main crank bearings from being overstressed. The increased force smashes the hell out of the bearings and very soon the thing starts to bang like a hammer on your firewall. After a few minutes of this, if you don't throttle back, then a rod goes through the crankcase along with other parts of the combustion chamber and this can burst a fuel line, crack a manifold and then you have a fire. So no matter what you do, if you put too much stress on the crank you could get a rod out the block and that would be mildly explosive. If the engine is running as you say, you have no way of knowing if the bearings are starting to go, if carbon has built up somewhere and plugged an oil way. When you bang that engine up to full emergency power, that's when you find out that carbon has plugged an oilway and although it was fine at low pressure it will soon fail. Your suggestion that using wep will not make an engine fail anysooner sort of angers me.  

I think you are wrong,

For instance the boost pressure of the Typhoon at full throttle is +7 Psi ( +7 of atmospheric pressure which is 14.7 = 21.7 Psi and at WEP = +9 of 14.7 = 22.7psi) ( Thats if I have read correctly from wiki about how the British gauges worked, if not, it is just +7psi and +9psi ) That is a minimal increase in boost pressure to worry about Det. As longs as the charge air temps are able to cope, of which I would have assumed they are when the engine was designed.  Melting of pistons is not normaly done by det, det will normally crack the ringlands first...Melting of the pistons would more likely be by running lean...The spark plugs will be fine as longs as they have been designed to be used with a specific heat range and changed often...

Higher octane fuels do not prevent the engine from dieseling, Higher octane fuels help reduce det/knock etc


With the high maintenance intervals the aircraft's received and overhauling during the routine maintenance any worn parts would have been replaced, IE inspection of the valves and valves seats, valve springs etc etc... I do not belive running an engine hard for a few hours will cause the dramatic/common engine failures modelled that are modelled in other sims or that some people make out....Thats my views from things I have read, and my Engineering background.

I agree that running an engine hard for long periods will increase wear, but not at the fast rate your expressing. I also believe it should not anger you when someone has a different opinion to yourself.

[RASTER]

Higher octane fuels do not prevent the engine from dieseling, Higher octane fuels help reduce det/knock etc

You're not thinking science are you captain bushpilot. Both are in effect the same. BTW heat can show up in many ways and you are right on one point Mr. Engineer running lean, that is more air than fuel will cause the pistons to melt.

I also believe it should not anger you when someone has a different opinion to yourself

I could agree with you, but I won't. That's why God allows bad things happen. So some folk will take their responsibilities seriously. This response arouse any passionate negative emotion in you.