SUBSIM Radio Room Forums - View Single Post - IL-2 1946: help needed about radiator, overheating, power and props

Oberon · 04-04-11, 06:46 PM

The others will be better at answering this, but this is how I generally operate.

Stick radiators open until in a combat zone, particularly if there's flak around, slam them shut then otherwise stray metal gets into your engine and it's generally bad. Plus you will need the extra power. If you overheat, throttle back until it cools (or if you want to exploit IL2, just put the throttle back, wait until it goes to 'Normal' and then open it again...it will on many planes reset the countdown until engine damage, in reality it wouldn't.) You can go quite a few minutes on 'overheat' before the engine starts being damaged, but generally if you overheat you'll just have to throttle back a bit. If you happen to be chasing someone and you're sure your six is clear, you can probably open the radiator a bit, but if you're on high revs it probably won't do anything anyway, but just beware of flying bits of metal.
In regards to prop settings, I've found that if I'm up about 2000m or so in a 109 then slapping pitch to about 80-95 will give me a bit of a boost. It's a bit like the reverser in a locomotive, put it back too much and you'll run out of steam, leave it too far forward and you'll be making more work for the engine for less gain. There's probably a table for what pitch to use at what altitude, Schroeder probably has it, but I generally don't go lower than 70.
Another thing which will affect your power on some aircraft is the supercharger, after you climb above a certain altitude remember to switch to Supercharger stage two or you'll lose some power, likewise when descending remember to switch back to stage one.
WEP...that can increase your speed but will also increase the chance of overheat. It varies in aircraft but in reality most aircraft would screw their engines up if WEP was left on for too long, although in the BOB pilots did make liberal usage of it to catch up on 109s, but generally there was a reason that you had to break a wire to push it fully forward on a Spit and that was because it was bad for the engine if overused.
Your cruising ratio sounds similar to what we use, although often we put radiators open.

So, basically, yes the engine will overheat at 110% there are factors which affect that, but WEP is not one of them I believe. Speed is one, I think, possibly altitude as well, not sure about that. The other guys will have more knowledge, but I have found that how long it takes the engine to overheat at 110% does vary in different situations and also in different climates. You can probably push a 109 for longer over Russia than you can over Tobruk (unless you have the trop version which would last a bit longer), I'm not 100% sure that's modeled in IL2...but it certainly does feel like it, the amount of times I've overheated whilst flying over the desert.

04-04-11, 06:46 PM	#2
Oberon Lucky Jack Join Date: Jul 2002 Posts: 25,976 Downloads: 61 Uploads: 20	The others will be better at answering this, but this is how I generally operate. Stick radiators open until in a combat zone, particularly if there's flak around, slam them shut then otherwise stray metal gets into your engine and it's generally bad. Plus you will need the extra power. If you overheat, throttle back until it cools (or if you want to exploit IL2, just put the throttle back, wait until it goes to 'Normal' and then open it again...it will on many planes reset the countdown until engine damage, in reality it wouldn't.) You can go quite a few minutes on 'overheat' before the engine starts being damaged, but generally if you overheat you'll just have to throttle back a bit. If you happen to be chasing someone and you're sure your six is clear, you can probably open the radiator a bit, but if you're on high revs it probably won't do anything anyway, but just beware of flying bits of metal. In regards to prop settings, I've found that if I'm up about 2000m or so in a 109 then slapping pitch to about 80-95 will give me a bit of a boost. It's a bit like the reverser in a locomotive, put it back too much and you'll run out of steam, leave it too far forward and you'll be making more work for the engine for less gain. There's probably a table for what pitch to use at what altitude, Schroeder probably has it, but I generally don't go lower than 70. Another thing which will affect your power on some aircraft is the supercharger, after you climb above a certain altitude remember to switch to Supercharger stage two or you'll lose some power, likewise when descending remember to switch back to stage one. WEP...that can increase your speed but will also increase the chance of overheat. It varies in aircraft but in reality most aircraft would screw their engines up if WEP was left on for too long, although in the BOB pilots did make liberal usage of it to catch up on 109s, but generally there was a reason that you had to break a wire to push it fully forward on a Spit and that was because it was bad for the engine if overused. Your cruising ratio sounds similar to what we use, although often we put radiators open. So, basically, yes the engine will overheat at 110% there are factors which affect that, but WEP is not one of them I believe. Speed is one, I think, possibly altitude as well, not sure about that. The other guys will have more knowledge, but I have found that how long it takes the engine to overheat at 110% does vary in different situations and also in different climates. You can probably push a 109 for longer over Russia than you can over Tobruk (unless you have the trop version which would last a bit longer), I'm not 100% sure that's modeled in IL2...but it certainly does feel like it, the amount of times I've overheated whilst flying over the desert.