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Originally Posted by WTE_Galway
Aircraft like the Emil in game are not a CSP. They are automatic pitch but do not maintain a constant prop speed. This is historically correct.
American aircraft esp. late war are a CSP but a SIMPLIFIED one. There are limits in real life to how much variation in MP a CSP can cope with and still keep engine speed within limits. AFAIK there should also be limits on what MP can be handled at lower RPM without engine damage. The CSP in game seems to do a better job than it should. As with most engine management there is a limit to how complex/realistic you should make it for a game.
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I don't know about the Russian planes that Cazador asked about, but i think this is about right...German planes have variable pitch props that are controlled by the automatic system, while US ones have constant speed props.
What we don't have in IL-2 is torque limits. Since a propeller in lower RPM has a higher pull/air resistance (up to a certain point of course, depending on the engine's optimum power settings), it carries more torque back to the engine. In reality, if the engine is not turning fast enough to "absorb" this torque it can be damaged. In IL-2 however, especially when flying on manual pitch, it's a well known and widely used trick to cruise at more than 100% power and lower the pitch to prevent overheat, since most of the heat increase in IL-2's engine operation model seems to come from the amount of RPMs you are running at.
I don't know if going manual on German planes gives you more power, but i learned to fly the stock unmodded FW190As this way a long time ago and i still use it. I think that most of the modded 190s have improved versions of the auto system, so you don't really need to touch the manual pitch on those. Also, i never use manual mode in German fighters that feature liquid cooled engines (the bombers, like the Ju88 do just fine in manual, i think it doesn't even have an auto system), because it's too easy to damage and seize the engine because of over-revving it. So, the following observations are only about stock, unmodded Fw190As with their air-cooled BMW801 engines.
The thing is, the in-game auto system seems slower in adjusting RPM and it also uses the conservative, real-world values, while a person who flies on manual pitch can over-ride this. This last sentence is pretty important and also hidden deep at the core of many performance debates about the 190s over the years, even if it's less than obvious. The reason?
Well, engine power is among the most important parts of performance at a given situation or flight envelope and within given restrictions.
The important thing to note is that IL-2 has different restrictions than the real life aircraft it models.
In IL-2 you can do stuff to your engine that would kill a real engine in a matter of minutes or even seconds: go full out on power and when it overheats just pull pitch and throttle all the way back for a few seconds while popping the rads full open, overheat warning goes away and since the overheat is a resettable 5-minute timer, there's no damage done to the engine. If you did the same thing in real life, assuming you didn't blow a cylinder head or start an engine fire during the overheat phase, you would probably crack some engine parts during the low-throttle/open rads phase due to shock cooling, or due to over-torque when you pull the pitch back.
However, we don't have to worry about this in IL2. It's ok, it's a 10 year old flight sim engine and i'm not dissing IL2. The thing that matters is this:
in a game where most planes can go above their real-life engine operating limits, flying with a system that keeps to those limits is like denying to use a free performance boost.
The in-game kommandogerat system for the stock 190s keeps your RPM at no more than 2700 and this is in accordance to real-life operating restrictions. The in-game BMW801 however, can easily withstand long stretches of time at as much as 3000 RPM, depending on other factors. See the HUGE PARENTHESIS below for details.
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Another strange thing here is that as you go higher engines seem to overheat easier, even if going higher means a lower ambient air temperature. Maybe it's because the air is rarified and there's not enough of those cooled air molecules to exchange heat with the engine via contact. Or maybe it's just a case of using only IAS and radiators to estimate airflow around the engine and since IAS reads lower values up high, the game engine thinks "aha, less cooling". If that's the case, then it would be the exact reverse of the excessive 109 elevator stiffness at high altitude even on cruise speeds, where many people suspect that the game engine is using TAS to calculate the control's stiffness instead of IAS: you're cruising at 270km/h IAS in a 109 at 2000m and it's all fine, you're cruising at the same airspeed at 8000m and you can barely raise the aircraft's nose. The only thing that changes between these two situations is altitude, air density and TAS, which are all inter-connected anyway. So, maybe the 109s elevator stiffness onset is around 500km/h but instead of IAS it is triggered by TAS. You can easily get such a true airspeed in level flight if you are flying high. The thing is, the reason airplanes fly with IAS indicators is that they are an indirect indication of "how the plane feels the air". No matter the TAS and altitude, an aircraft that has the same amount of power available (say for example, sea level power and having the same power at 4000m thanks to a supercharger) should perform roughly the same at equal IAS values. Then again, maybe there's not enough air up there to make the 109's elevators effective, so unless we hear from an official source we're simply stuck speculating about these two issues.)
So, when you're strapped for that extra few hundred meters on the climb, with a bandit on your six in a "whoever stalls first is dead" contest, you're better off just flying your 190A on manual and going 100% pitch as soon as your airspeed drops below 250-300km/h IAS.
It will give you some extra pull to climb a few meters more without killing your engine, which is what would probably happen in reality. Plus it's not unfair, because the guy chasing you is also doing something similar. For example, max continuous boost for a Spit Mk.IX was about +8lbs, anything more and the temperatures started rising fast. You could use various stages of extra power for a set amount of minutes, or you could keep an eye on the coolant temp gauge and throttle back before it reached 100 degrees. However, everyone in IL2 can cruise at much higher power settings than that. We are all not only fighting but even cruising at power settings that the real guys only used for a minute or two tops, and that if there was someone on their six, or didn't use at all because they'd break their engines.
That's why i've been advocating reworked engine tolerances and CEM for SoW and i'm glad they said they would do it. Usable engine power at any stage in flight is a huge issue. In IL-2 we have considerably more power available to us for near unlimited periods of time compared to the real warbirds. It's not unfair since we can all do it right? I mean, all planes can go over the limits with near impunity, it's not like my 190 is forced to fly by the book while the ebil Spit drivers max their engines out, so what's all the fuss about?
Well, it takes no genius to realize that this abundance of extra performance at critical stages of a mission skews our perception of the rest of the flight model's components on any particular aircraft, the match-ups between different aircraft and the way we interpret war-time documents like combat reports and accounts from veterans.
For example, a Spit 25lb might be right on the money concerning it's aerodynamic modelling, but since it can use so much more engine power for so much longer than in real life (i think engine power factors into turn rates too? correct me if i'm wrong), it becomes better than it was in reality and people start screaming "nerf the ufo". Similarly with a P47 that had 4 main engine controls and a few secondary but also critical ones in reality, with strict operating limits, but in the sim you can just shove everything to the max (where "everything"=throttle and pitch only) and zoom back up after you bounce someone. Same with an early 109E against Hurricanes, where instead of having to keep your prop pitch in mind, you can just completely dominate them with your performance advantage and not even break a sweat about keeping your engine healthy.
I think that people won't whine so much with such a reworked engine model, because by some weird coincidence of fate the real airplanes balance out. The German planes might be under-performing in late war scenarios but they are fully automatic, while the allied ones hold top performance but are a pain to operate correctly. In a similar fashion, early war German designs were generally faster but more complicated to operate, while Spits and Hurris in France and in BoB either had two-stage props (very early on) or constant speed ones.
I like this a lot, because it creates interesting dynamics and performance is not free. Going from an older bird to a newer one finally means something. You have to learn new things to operate it succesfully, you don't just get an extra 100km/h top speed as a gift. So, the other guy might be flying a crappier plane but it could be so much easier to fly that while you're fiddling with your engine controls he can concentrate purely on maneuvering and give you a hard time. More variables in any given match-up and more things to screw up as you move to more advanced aircraft=more kills and more fun for everyone.
It's like the designers back in WWII were working with us flight sim addicts in mind
