Ok well finally I took the plunge and tried a mission with CEM on. I figured how to open the radiator and it wasn't so bad. The mission was in a P-40 at sea level so pretty basic. I was able to fly at 110% throttle for maybe 8 minutes before overheating, then put it to 60 and got "Engine: Normal" after a few seconds, which was good. But it seemed like having the radiator open made the handling of the plane a bit doughier, though maybe it's because I haven't picked up Il-2 in a week or so.

How do I use the radiator properly? Does closing it make the plane fly smoother, even though it makes the engine overheat? When should I open and close it?

Other than that, I don't know how to use these:

- magnetos
- superchargers
- fuel mix
- prop pitch

Well I guess fuel mix you lower when at higher altitudes right? How do I know to raise and lower it and when do I know it's perfect?

And prop pitch I know makes you go a bit faster or slower...is 0 slowest and 100 fastest, or is it the other way?

Magnetos and superchargers I have no idea how to use or what they do.

Magnetos: Don't worry about these for the game. Pressing "I" activates several steps including turning these on. These are connected to the spark plugs to the cylinders. They charge the plugs without the need of a battery, unlike in say a modern day car. You have 2 plugs per cylinder (so 2 magnetos) to burn the fuel evenly and to back you up in the unlikely event that one fails.

Radiator: Don't know that much about it in a real aircraft. In the game I keep it 2 or 4 in cruise, and closed in combat (or unless overheating, then open) When closed I do not set power over 100 unless I am really fast. I keep my speed up and rarely overheat. When open they will create drag.

Mixture:It's automatically at full rich. In a real plane, it has to be adjusted at all times. If it's too rich you can gunk up the spark plugs faster, and you will waste more fuel. It's adjusted by altitude, and generally you lean until you get maximum power. While in cruise you use the cylinder head temperature to determine what to set it to. Also, the engine is shut off by leaning the mixture to 0, not by turning off the magnetos as in the game.
In the game lean it out to save gas, or when you see red-brown smoke trails from your exhaust. You can over-rich (120%) to put more fuel in the cylinders to help prevent overheating.

Supercharger: Sucks more air into the engine to compensate for thin air at altitude. It depends on the plane, but if my rpms start to drop, maybe above 3000 meters or so I turn it on.

Power:Again, I haven't flown complex/high performance aircraft. If I'm not wrong, it's the pressure of fuel/air going into the engine. In a real aircraft setting a pressure higher than prop pitch can cause the engine to explode. This is not modeled in IL-2.

Pitch: This is the angle of the propeller blades. This regulates the RPMs the propeller spins at, not the power. I generally have it at 100 for combat. It should be lowered in a dive to reduce drag (imagine those paper helicopters you made as a kid.) When dive-bombing however, I keep it at full ( I want to dive as slow as possible in this case). For cruise I might have it anywhere between 50 to 90. Landing; down to 30. Despite it not being modeled in the game, I never raise power above the level of pitch, and I don't know what benefits it can give you.

Boost: Basically a boost in pressure, for some planes. This is useless for Merlins at low altitude except to fry the engine. Some "boosts" are really just an injection of water or ethanol. For a 109 I think I was told to reduce power to 80, add boost, then power to 110 or else the engine will overheat too quickly. So, for some planes you need to ask around or do research.

To see some effects, the best option is to experiment. For example, pick a US plane. Land it with throttle -30% and pitch 100. It's really hard because the prop is still spinning rather quickly and making you too fast. On the other hand, lower the pitch, and you can hear the engine really change the sound it makes and your rpms drop off.

Hope this helps. If I make any errors, feel free to correct me.

I agree with all the poster above says until the prop pitch and landing part.

All WWII aircraft landed with prop pitch at 100 percent. Cause at those low speeds you needed two things

1. if the landing is wrong 100% pitch gave you instant power to pull away and go around with throttle.

And with 100% pitch at low speeds the prop would actually act as an aerodynamic break spinning the prop faster against the wind. Its complex but you will figure it out

uh, if you read bearcat's nugget's thread, there's a M4T link for CEM, and the explanations there are golden.

but here's a quick run down.

Mixture, you have to thin it out as you go higher altitudes . . . esp if there's no supa charger.

Supercharger for mid / high altitude, keeps engine performance up . . . read the plane / control pdf guide as each plane has specific alt where you switch it.

Power is basically controlled by your throttle.
If you don't have a throttle on your joystick or seperate throttle . . . I guess its KB

On cars this is the gas pedal. 0% no bueno, and 100% full, and then you can take it up to 110% (above 100% usually engages boost).

WEP / Boost: extra power from your engine. Depending on the plane you can damage the engine if you over do it, overheat (usually happens). Refer to plane guide pdf for specifics.

Prop pitch: this is how much the prop bites into air. Engines run at an optimum rpm and prop pitch keeps it there. If you set it too high an the engine over revs, you can burn it out. German planes have automatic prop pitch and if you do manual, they are much more sensitive to proper pitch + throttle settings than say VVS or US planes.

I've found 90 prop pitch with 90 throttle is faster than 100 pitch and 100 throttle in some planes but it varies plane to plane so you have to figure out your fav planes.


for landing I usually set prop pitch at 80+ (usually 100).

Diving usually reduce prop pitch and esp dive bombing set it lower (



With regarding magneto's they do have a place in the game.

When you take engine damage and it either shuts off or rpms are dropping, and you can't start it. You can try switching magnetos and try restarting the engine.

Sometimes putting on 1 magneto (vs 1+2), will allow it to get more rpm's or even start up.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: doraemil,

I'm too lazy to write things down so here is a link that helped me a lot as a so called armchair pilot:

http://www.mission4today.com/i...Base&op=show&kid=249

Everything about Prop Pitch, Fuel Mixture, Supercharger, WEP, Radiator Settings, Trim, Magneto, Throttle and Flaps.

Thanks guys, this is very useful. I KNEW the radiator being open was messing up my flight.

I looked for CEM data in Bearcat's nuggets thread but didn't catch it, I'll check out the M4T link later, thanks to all again.

There is a very simple general rule when to shift supercharger: Observe the mainfold pressure gauge, and shift the supercharger. If pressure drops, shift it back, if not leave it. In short - always shift supercharger so that the pressure is highest.

It should usually be shifted between 2000 and 4000m of alt. It also can't hurt to know how many stages certain planes have. Most don't have manual supercharger control, some have two stages (most russian birds) and some have three (F6F, F4U, F4F, J2M-5,...).

CEM really counts in Russian planes - you have to do everything manually there, from mixture to supercharger. Spitfire for example on the other hand has it all automated, you can't even control radiators in it.

Oh, and BTW, leave radiators on R-2800 equipped planes (P-47, F6F, F4U) and J2M closed all the time. If you open them, they don't cool the engine down, but they do contribute to drag. It's a bug. You can run R-2800 on overheat without damage for 10 minutes anyway, twice as long as other engines.

You really don't need to worry about overheats as much as you might fear. Many of our aircraft can run at 110% power, rads closed, with the overheat message for more than 10 minutes before the engine blows.

What do you generally do when you get the overheat message when you want to make the engine cooler? Drop throttle? To what? I was able to get it to go away in the P-40 by setting it to 60% for about 30 seconds but the radiator was open during the entire mission.

quote:

Originally posted by Ba5tard5word:
What do you generally do when you get the overheat message when you want to make the engine cooler? Drop throttle? To what? I was able to get it to go away in the P-40 by setting it to 60% for about 30 seconds but the radiator was open during the entire mission.

Again, depending on what I'm flying, I will ignore the overheat message for quite a long time. But if I want to take care of it, pulling back to 90-95% manifold, prop pitch to 90-95%, and radiator at 2-4 will usually take care of it.

The first step is not to panic when the overheat message appears. Do a little experiment with one of the aircraft you like to fly. With a stopwatch, time how long it takes to blow the engine at emergency power, 100% pitch, rads closed. You'll probably be surprised.

Hmm, cool.

Is there any sort of detailed info on each plane about their peculiarities? Seems like someone would have put together one at some point. The cockpit info .pdf that comes with the game isn't too detailed.

Don't know if it's modelled, but rich fuel mixture at altitude should help with engine cooling.

quote:

Originally posted by megalopsuche:
You really don't need to worry about overheats as much as you might fear. Many of our aircraft can run at 110% power, rads closed, with the overheat message for more than 10 minutes before the engine blows.

All piston engines except R-2800 series in IL-2 will start getting damaged after 5 minutes plus loose change on overheat. It really doesn't matter how "hard" you are overheating, the modelling is very simple: in the instant when "Engine Overheat" message pops up, a stopwatch starts, and if you don't cool the engine down before time runs out, engine will get damaged. YOu only need to get the Overheat message disspaear for a moment, to reset the stopwatch.

All R-2800 engines however have this time doubled, so you can run them nearly 11 minutes on overheat before they'll get damaged.

Oh, that's good info on the R-2800. Thanks for the clarification.

quote:

All WWII aircraft landed with prop pitch at 100 percent. Cause at those low speeds you needed two things

1. if the landing is wrong 100% pitch gave you instant power to pull away and go around with throttle.

And with 100% pitch at low speeds the prop would actually act as an aerodynamic break spinning the prop faster against the wind. Its complex but you will figure it out Smile

Aw shucks Alright, well I learned something today too. I haven't flown this game for over a month. That definitely makes more sense, thanks.

quote:

Some "boosts" are really just an injection of water or ethanol. For a 109 I think I was told to reduce power to 80, add boost, then power to 110 or else the engine will overheat too quickly.

The MW thingy in Bf-109's have to be turned on when your throttle is (I think) under 100%, if throttle is higher then your engine will immediately blow a gasket and lose most of its power, it does this even if CEM is off. As far as I know no other WEP/boost device in other planes does this.

So basically set throttle to like 95%, turn on MW, then you can set your throttle back to 110% or whatever you want.

quote:

Originally posted by Ba5tard5word:

quote:

Some "boosts" are really just an injection of water or ethanol. For a 109 I think I was told to reduce power to 80, add boost, then power to 110 or else the engine will overheat too quickly.

The MW thingy in Bf-109's have to be turned on when your throttle is (I think) under 100%, if throttle is higher then your engine will immediately blow a gasket and lose most of its power, it does this even if CEM is off. As far as I know no other WEP/boost device in other planes does this.

So basically set throttle to like 95%, turn on MW, then you can set your throttle back to 110% or whatever you want.

I've screwed up the engine in the 190D-9 by engaging MW50 above 100% manifold.

Oops yeah sorry I forgot there is an MW50 in that one D9, I assume it has to be switched on below 100% too.

Ok so I tried CEM some tonight and I think I figured it out pretty quickly after experimenting with stuff. I only flew around sea level (I generally don't really go higher than 2000m anyway) so I didn't mess with the stuff needed at higher altitude.

I guess this is all you have to do:

- if the plane has a multiple-set of superchargers, set it to 1 when around 3000m up or less to get your engine running at max possible rpm

- open/close radiator as needed

- don't need to mess with fuel rich except when needed at higher altitude

- prop pitch at 100 seems ok

Prop pitch is really the only thing for low level stuff that I don't get. When should I lower it below 100? Seems like sometimes when at 110% throttle and around 480kph in a fast plane like the Tempest when trying to pick up speed, putting pitch to like 70 or 80% would give me a boost of like 10kph but it was kind of unpredictable and I didn't see this happen at more like 550kph.


Also what will boost do if left on for a while even if I am careful to avoid overheating, will it kill the engine? Use up fuel a bunch?