experience so far......

[Lololopoulos]

Originally Posted by Dutch_851

1) Quite correct. If you're doing 30 mph on the flat in your car in 3rd gear, to maintain 30mph when you change to 4th gear, the revs have to go down. You don't go faster unless you apply more gas. In the game, if you're already at full throttle and you coarsen the pitch, the revs will go down, but you'll be overboosting the engine, which will cause damage. You have to throttle back first, then coarsen pitch. Keep it in fine pitch after take-off, but lower the nose to gain airspeed (after raising your gear), then reduce throttle and coarsen pitch a bit. When you coarsen the pitch, you'll see the boost go up. The relationship between pitch and boost is a bit of a juggling act, but you'll get the hang of it if you start from here I think.

Hope this helps!

Thanks buddy. I still don't get how propeller pitch can be any helpful. but i'll definitely look further into it.

[Lololopoulos]

To Blackdog,
wow I learned so much just by reading through this thread. For a few times today, I pressed the button for "toggle landing gear" and didn't look any further whether the green lights were on and came in for landing. And u know, i did a few gear up landing like that without knowing why my gears weren't lowered. I think the neutral position u mentioned is what I did. After taking off I pressed G, then before landing I pressed G again so the gear got into the neutral position. Oh well, i'm just glad it's not real ME 109 i'm flying in.

Meanwhile, expressing my astonish again at the level of detail worked into this game. Now i kinda get why it took them so long to develop it.

cheers!

lololopoulos~

[JG53Frankyboy]

Engine start:
To set the magnetos manually is not necessary. They will be activated automaticly als soon you hit "I".

Pitch:
You "simple" control your engine RPM with it at a given throttle setting.

[Lololopoulos]

Originally Posted by JG53Frankyboy

Engine start:
To set the magnetos manually is not necessary. They will be activated automaticly als soon you hit "I".

umm, that's a little disappointing. i was hoping to a little more for the CEM engine start. Now it just boils down to fuel cock and radiators. haha

Originally Posted by JG53Frankyboy

Pitch:
You "simple" control your engine RPM with it at a given throttle setting.

Does a higher RPM mean more power, for example in a climb?

[Lololopoulos]

Originally Posted by cheesehawk

I think the hand pump is for priming the fuel injectors, the control is there, but no effect is modeled in game.

There's another lever under the landing gear switch, which is for emergency deployment of the gear. You don't have to do anything but pull it (or is it twist it? I've only used it a couple of times) and HOPEFULLY your gear will deploy. If it doesn't try slamming the plane around a bit, I've jarred it loose with some hard rolling.

Back to Lololu....

When you keep the same throttle, and coarsen the prop pitch (lowering from say 11:00 to 10:00) if you are in level flight and all else is equal, you will see your speed increase. If you change the pitch drastically, you'll need some time to see the results in straight and level flight. While it is accurate to think of the prop-pitch as gears in a car, think of the propeller's effect on air as a car driving on a sheet of ice. It takes time for whatever changes you want to go into effect if you aren't gentle enough.

Damaged gear coming down after hard rolling? yet another statement for the attention to detail of the dev team.

About the prop pitch, i'm always confused about all the terminologies. So as I understand from what you said,
coarsen prop pitch = decrease prop pitch = dial moving counter clockwise? Is that right?

How long did it take you to before you're able to effectively utilize prop pitch in combat?

[JG52Krupi]

Quite easily I found, during turning dogfights i just had a quick glance but during dives it is vastly important a few times now online i have had to run from an encounter after blowing the engine trying to boom and zoom

[Lololopoulos]

Originally Posted by JG52Krupi

Quite easily I found, during turning dogfights i just had a quick glance but during dives it is vastly important a few times now online i have had to run from an encounter after blowing the engine trying to boom and zoom

ok I understand why u would need to keep the revs at bay using prop pitch during a Sturzflug (as the official manual put it, lol), but as of now I really don't see how it can benefit level and turning flying, or even climbing. I've heard some more experience pilots say that if u can manage the prop pitch well, it's like being able to drive a manuel car, and in combat u can really gain an edge.
is that really true?

[JG52Uther]

Well I know I have found myself very slow sometimes because I am nursing the engine too much, and keeping revs/ATA too low.
Its certainly not 'il2 point and go at 110%' anymore!

[JG52Krupi]

Originally Posted by JG52Uther

Well I know I have found myself very slow sometimes because I am nursing the engine too much, and keeping revs/ATA too low.
Its certainly not 'il2 point and go at 110%' anymore!

True it certainly isn't but after you get over the initial learning curve i find it to be quite similar.

A tip from a magazine on a 109 E flight.

To ensure you don't overdo the rpm on take off set the pitch to 11:30. I now fly like most of the time.

I set the throttle to 90% and now my I use the pitch to keep the rpm around the red arrow... My problem only comes when I spot an aircraft below me and dive its very hard to keep an eye on the pitch enemy and rpm and I normally end up either losing sight of the contact, ignoring my wildly high rpm until I start to shake to bits or forget to stop turning the pitch down which end up in losing all energy as you start your climb back up. All of three of these mistakes usually end in a disaster, but i am getting better and I see this as a huge increase in gameplay over 1946 as its much harder to boom and zoom now

[JG53Frankyboy]

Originally Posted by Lololopoulos

ok I understand why u would need to keep the revs at bay using prop pitch during a Sturzflug (as the official manual put it, lol), but as of now I really don't see how it can benefit level and turning flying, or even climbing. I've heard some more experience pilots say that if u can manage the prop pitch well, it's like being able to drive a manuel car, and in combat u can really gain an edge.
is that really true?

do yourself a favour and pick the 109.
Set the throttle to 1,1 ATA and set the pitch to 11:00. It is as you would fly a plane with a fixed propeller !

Fly level, climb, dive. And watch the changes of the rpm gauge ! the rpm are changing.
To keep the rpm in at the wanted setting, you have to change the propellerblade angle - called the pitch in game.

The Spitifre II, Hurricane 'Rotol' , Ju87 (as examples),are different. They have a ConstantSpeedPropeller, where an automatic is TRYING to keep the desired rpm constant by changing the propeller blades automaticly - this system is the governor !
Ju88, He111, G.50 and Br.20 have also CSP (even when the Ju88A-1 should have historical also a manual pitch propleer like the 109...)

In a 109 and 110, the Pilot himself has to be the governor

Hurricane DH, Spit I&Ia and Blenheim has a propeller with only two fixed settings - in general one (the coarse one, compare it to the 109's at 10:00) for level flying and the other one (the fine one, compare it to the 109's at 12:00) for start and combat . With the fine one you have to be very carefull with the throttle not to overrev the engine ! The coarse one does also not work very good (at least in my Blenheim experience) , because with it it is difficult to mantain the needed engine temperature.....