Engine damaged by high speed (?)

[Ropalcz]

Hi, I have a question - Is it possible to damage the engine with a high speed dive because I had to dive away in my F4 today (speed well over 700 km/h) and suddenly my engine became damaged even though I wasn´t hit by enemy fire. 

 

Is there a way to prevent such damage while flying at a very high speed? 

[Mad_Mikhael]

Did you fly with manual prop? Or auto prop? What engine settings? Was it a nose dive?

[Ropalcz]

Did you fly with manual prop? Or auto prop? What engine settings? Was it a nose dive?

 

Auto prop. Engine setting was standard cruising rpm (60-63%) and I was diving in a pretty steep angle.

[56RAF_Roblex]

Yes you can break your engine due to excessive revs in a dive.    That "well over 700kph" is spinning your prop faster than it is designed to spin.

[216th_Lucas_From_Hell]

Reduce or close throttle when diving for extended periods. Aircraft and engines have structural limits so if you hit 700km/h halfway through your dive and keep speeding you'll be in trouble.

 

Before you enter a dive, think: at what altitude and speed do you want to exit it? If you want to dive 500m and exit that at 700km/h, by all means use the engine to help. If you're aiming to lose 2000m and want to get there at 700 km/h, let gravity do the job.

[Ropalcz]

Thx for advice, I will be more careful next time.

PS: With my almost 500 hours played, I haven't faced such problem until yesterday :D

[GridiroN]

Yes you can break your engine due to excessive revs in a dive. That "well over 700kph" is spinning your prop faster than it is designed to spin.

That's true, but the DB60x can more than handle a dive up to its DNE speed. He wouldn't break his engine from that.

 

He probably was hit by a rifle caliber round from the pursuing enemy. Shots don't always make a thud noise or rattle your plane if they hit with weak impact from distance.

[Guest deleted@83466]

Yes you can break your engine due to excessive revs in a dive.    That "well over 700kph" is spinning your prop faster than it is designed to spin.

 

No, this is not true when the engine is operating with Automatic pitch control.  If you set the power for X amount of revs, you will see the RPM will stay amazingly consistent at all speed ranges.  You are only going to over-rev when you are manually controlling the prop pitch.  I don't believe that the OP's engine was damaged by his high speed dive.

[1PL-Husar-1Esk]

You can also use fine pitch (max rpm in CSP) as good air brake in dive.