Need Help with P40 Engine/Throttle

[US63_SpadLivesMatter]

Can anybody tell me in idiot terms (or point me to a guide that does) how to manage the engine in the P40? What do I need to do in order to get performance anywhere near the historical P40e.

 

Right now I fly everywhere at about 220-240mph and the auto pitch has my engine jumping from continuous to combat to emergency on its own accord as soon as my speed picks up.

 

Thank you.

Edited May 13, 2017 by hrafnkolbrandr

[19//Moach]

What do I need to do in order to get performance anywhere near the historical P40e.

 

 

you can join us in putting pressure on devs to correct the blatant flaws in the simulation of that airplane

 

for one thing, there's the fact that they took the engine's rated limits (published in peacetime with the intent of reducing maintenance costs) quite literally as physical tolerances, and exceeding those causes rapid catastrophic failure

 

this is in sharp conflict with a huge number of historical accounts from combat pilots, who have reported much higher performance being tolerated for longer periods than suggested by the training handbook. the allison v1710 was capable of reaching 70" of boost, in extreme cases without spontaneously disassembly

 

 

that's just the engine issue though... the main fault with the BoX kittyhawk, or as it is known in MP: "the shittyhawk", is that the tail wobbles an absurd amount and poses a huge danger to the pilot, which must be constantly vigilant of his rudder, lest the plane enters an unstalled death-slide, which in turn forces it into a snap roll from which recovery requires a lot of altitude and/or luck

 

 

in short - the reason you're not reaching historical performance with the P40, is because it is simply not present in the simulator

Edited May 13, 2017 by 19//Moach

[JtD]

Can anybody tell me in idiot terms (or point me to a guide that does) how to manage the engine in the P40? What do I need to do in order to get performance anywhere near the historical P40e.

 

Right now I fly everywhere at about 220-240mph and the auto pitch has my engine jumping from continuous to combat to emergency on its own accord as soon as my speed picks up.

The Allison engine in the P-40 has no automatic boost control. As speed picks up or/and you go lower, you get more or/and thicker air into your engine, which means the manifold pressure aka. boost goes up. In effect, you always have to keep an eye on the boost gauge and adjust throttle whenever you change altitude or/and speed. In combat this is pretty much all the time and very distracting.

It gets even more tricky because engine rpm determine the supercharger speed, which in turn is responsible for building up the boost, and it does it better at higher rpm. Now as you go up and down or fast and slow, engine rpm will also vary, but only temporarily, until the automatic rpm regulator has done its job. It's just slow enough to mess with the necessary manual throttle adjustments.

 

If you fly at sea level, you can use ~70% rpm / 75% throttle for an about 280mph cruise, which is pretty much what you could get out of it at these settings back in the day. Anything higher, both in terms of rpm and boost, will be combat or even emergency power, and thus time limited.

If you fly at 13000+feet, you can use ~70% rpm / 100% throttle instead, which will get you to the roughly 240mph indicated you've mentioned. It still is cruise setting, because in the thinner air up here, at 100% throttle gives pretty much the boost as 75% down low.

 

If you think this sucks - the US installed automatic boost control systems in all of their fighters later in the war, for good reasons.

Edited May 13, 2017 by JtD

[US63_SpadLivesMatter]

So can I set this thing to about 70% rpm and just keep an eye on my throttle as I maneuver? And is that with automatic prop pitch switched off, or is the switch still in the auto position?

 

It seems you can make adjustments to prop pitch with it both on and off.

[JtD]

Keep it in auto. Otherwise you'll not only have to manage throttle the hard way, but also the rpm.

 

Auto means "constant speed propeller" - you select an rpm, the propeller maintains it (generally speaking). 70% are ~2600rpm here. If you switch to manual, you directly select pitch, the angle at which the blades go through the air. And then, every time you go faster, rpm increase, every time you go slower, rpm drop, and you'd also be fiddling with pitch adjustments. There's no real gain to it, and historically the manual feature was mostly there as backup, in case the automatic system had a failure.

[US63_SpadLivesMatter]

Okay, so set my RPMs to 2600 and babysit my throttle?

 

Sounds "fun".