Pe-2 Help

[martinistripes]

Love this game. Love this aircraft. A few issues though.

 

When cruising between waypoints in Career mode I can't keep up with the formation. I'm following engine settings recommended in Chuck's guide. I'm using the supercharger settings and water radiator but still not keeping pace. Fuel setting is normally 40% or 50%. Is the AI using less perhaps?

 

Secondly when landing, I touch down just fine but as I gradually apply brake (using my rudder toe brakes) the aircraft spins off to the left and almost rolls. It's done this every time on me and also the one time I watched my friend land in coop who has completely different controls setup. What are we missing?

 

Lastly, I'm finding the workload of steering the aircraft between waypoints and then jumping to the bomb sight a bit much, mostly just on short routes where you're literally climbing and turning up until bombs drop. Can I use the autopilot (not the level auto pilot, but cheat AI autopilot), to stay in formation and still operate the guns and bomb sight?

 

Any assistance appreciated. Thanks.

[TP_Silk]

There is a well known issue whereby AI aircraft will have perfect trim and engine settings when in transit so will be able to go faster. This seems to be present in the official missions and in many missions from the like of the PWCG engine. It's just something we learn to live with in SP play.

 

Second - your Pe-2 doesn't have toe brakes, but instead has the standard Russian style brake whereby you have a single brake lever that operates linked to the rudder control pedals to control which side the braking is applied to. Basically this means that if you land with full left rudder and apply the brake level, only the left brake will operate fully (and vice versa). Incidentally the Spitfire also uses a very similar braking setup. General rule of thumb is that German and US planes will likely be the only ones in game so far to have toe-brakes. The exception is the I-16.

 

For your third question, the AI Autopilot takes over full control of your aircraft including course, speed and attacks/defence.

[martinistripes]

1 hour ago, TP_Silk said:

There is a well known issue whereby AI aircraft will have perfect trim and engine settings when in transit so will be able to go faster.

 

Wow, this was also a thing with the original IL-2 Sturmovik game. Hope it can be addressed by the devs or modded. I'm not a programmer, but I would hazard a guess that limiting climb/cruise speed to a certain percentage of maximum performance isn't too big a deal.

 

Thanks for clearing up the brakes issue.

 

Would be great if (in some future update) we can multi-crew pilot/bombardier.

[No.85_Camm]

When you land the Pe2, try having only 80% prop pitch. I personally land with no throttle and gradually apply the brakes and apply opposite rudder. It works for me!!

[Herne]

Does the PE-2 have rudder toe brakes ? Been a while since I flew it and can't remember but you may need to use the other brake binding that's needed for most other allied aircraft.

In the career mode for bombing I just try and match speed and keep formation. when the leader drops I drop. Only time will worry about the bombsite is if I ever get to lead the flight.

[martinistripes]

7 hours ago, No.85_Camm said:

try having only 80% prop pitch.

 

I can't adjust prop pitch, only RPM and water radiator and fuel mixture. Does anyone know optimal fuel mixture settings for various altitudes?

[RedeyeStorm]

RPM = prop pitch

[No.85_Camm]

16 hours ago, martinistripes said:

 

I can't adjust prop pitch, only RPM and water radiator and fuel mixture. Does anyone know optimal fuel mixture settings for various altitudes?

I don't usually bother with mixture settings for the PE2. If you have 85% fuel, you can fly all round the various maps without running out of fuel (unless you are damaged)

[martinistripes]

25 minutes ago, No.85_Camm said:

I don't usually bother with mixture settings for the PE2. If you have 85% fuel, you can fly all round the various maps without running out of fuel (unless you are damaged)

 

It wasn't so much for fuel saving. I thought I might gain some extra performance by leaning out the mixture as I gained altitude.

[No.85_Camm]

There are two things you can try whilst climbing.

(a)...don't climb sharply...climb at about 300m per minute or

(b) climb in stages....ie....500m then level out to build up speed to 400kmh, then climb another 500m....and so on until you get to the required height