Is the level of prop damage OTT?

[1PL-Husar-1Esk]

I wish that bullet could damage the propeller, now it is impossible to damage it that way.

[InProgress]

On 8/17/2019 at 2:05 PM, Bremspropeller said:

Props hit the water during low-level flight. Ju 88 shrugged it off and came home...

 

Unless there's some damaging dissymmetry that would shake-loose connetions, lines and gaskets, there's no reason why a struck prop should kill the engine instantly.

There might be some damage and the engine will probably have to be replaced, but chances are you can make it home or at least across the frontline.

 

It works in clod more or less it's hard to do it right without breaking all engines but the right engine there worked, it was slower than normal and vibrations were really hard (left engine dead) but you could still fly like this for a while. Maybe if i could get 2 engines still working then flying back home would be possible. Could not get them both still rotating, one always gets destroyed.

[CIA_Yankee_]

Generally speaking, I'd agree that prop and engine damage, in many cases, are not very accurate.

 

The P-47 is a great example: that engine has been known to take a ridiculous amount of damage and make it home, but in IL-2 it definitely appears to be a lot more fragile than the Klimov. There's some funky modeling at work, it feels like.

[Jabo_68*]

The damage to the Dixie Gal P-47 looks like the result of a nose over.

Edited August 26, 2019 by Jabo_68*
text

[Cpt_Siddy]

It is hard to model prop damage to this fidelity. 

 

I too, have fallen victim of torn of ailerons in to prop, that instantly kills my engine dead. 

 

The question is, is there any instance of FoD to prop in mid flight in IL-2 that don't instantly total you engine even modeled in? 

 

Or is flake of paint, fallen from enemy in front of you, carried by a warm summer breeze, enough to total all props 100% of the time? 

[unreasonable]

3 hours ago, Cpt_Siddy said:

The question is, is there any instance of FoD to prop in mid flight in IL-2 that don't instantly total you engine even modeled in? 

Or is flake of paint, fallen from enemy in front of you, carried by a warm summer breeze, enough to total all props 100% of the time? 

 

I am 90% sure that the answer is that you can get damage that is not terminal, at least for a few minutes, although the damage effects are much more severe than shown in US RL test results, at least for the P-47.

When I did my LAA vs P-47 DM tests to compare with the US experiment results, I found that a 20mm HE hit to the prop disc or engine area resulted in a loss of the aircraft ~43% of the time, almost immediately. That is about double the total loss rate for equivalent hits in the US tests, and in the US tests the losses would have usually taken much longer to take effect.

 

 I cannot be sure that the survivors in my test runs were all originally hit on the engine rather than the prop disc since I did not record these separately, since the US tests analysed these hits together but I doubt it.

 

I imagine that like everything else in the DM there is a RNG determining a range of damage for the energy of the impact applied for both initial impact and splinters (if any), so sometimes you will get a low roll.  So flakes of paint should be OK.   

[PainGod85]

7 hours ago, Jabo_68* said:

The damage to the Dixie Gal P-47 looks like the result of a nose over.

 

Yeah, because that totally explains the damage on its belly as well as the bent up horizontal stabilizer tip. But you'd known about those if you'd kept reading and comparing pictures instead of going off half-baked.

[Stoopy]

I just had the following happen in a mission I am testing and immediately thought of this thread:

 

Starting the engines in a Ju88 parked in a  revetment.  As both engines started and the rest of the startup sequence was being completed, a ground crew figure walked in front of the plane at an angle right to left, on a collision course with the prop for the #1 engine. I was watching on external view and saw the moron walk right into the propeller disk as the engine was idling.  I cringed but saw that he kept on walking so I just told myself he must have cleared the prop.  I popped back into cockpit view and lo and behold. there's the message "Engine 1 damaged".  A few seconds later the engine stops altogether revealing a completely shredded prop. 

 

We need propellers that are made out of the same tungsten-carbide material those ground crew dudes are made of.  Meanwhile, made a mental note to take extra-special care of these planes so's not to tick off the crew chief. 

 

 

 

Edited September 1, 2019 by Stoopy

[Panzerlang]

"Back on his feet..." 

Back home, safely landed.

[Diggun]

On 9/1/2019 at 3:31 AM, =[TIA]=Stoopy said:

tungsten-carbide

what the bluddy 'ell's tungsten-carbide props?

When I were a lad, props were made of jelly. AND you 'ad to spin 'em yerself, by hand. If you were lucky...

[Goffik]

5 hours ago, J3Hetzer said:

"Back on his feet..." 

Back home, safely landed.

 

That term is generally used to describe someone/something that has gotten up off the floor... at least in the UK and US. Hence it's reasonable "evidence" that the photo may well have been a belly landing of some sort.

 

No photos to post, but in 'The First and the Last' by Adolf Galland, he describes an occasion when he was testing new fighter. He saw "fireworks" when he test-fired the new nose-mounted cannon. He flew on and landed, only to discover that there was a small issue with the cannon's synchronisation... it has shot chunks out of the base of every prop blade. 

 

So, random mechanical issues in BoX anyone?

[CrazyDuck]

If metal prop hits dirt under full (or considerable) engine power, shouldn't it bend forward?

[Diggun]

1 minute ago, CrazyDuck said:

shouldn't it bend forward

Not if there's nobody there to hear it. 

[PainGod85]

Just now, CrazyDuck said:

If metal prop hits dirt under full (or considerable) engine power, shouldn't it bend forward?

 

Odds are the blades would be dragged along the ground by the plane's momentum.

[CrazyDuck]

Just now, PainGod85 said:

 

Odds are the blades would be dragged along the ground by the plane's momentum.

Yes, once the aircraft and the prop slow down - as we can see on numerous crash landing photos. But what in the case of "hit and run" like the picture in question?

[PainGod85]

Just now, CrazyDuck said:

Yes, once the aircraft and the prop slow down - as we can see on numerous crash landing photos. But what in the case of "hit and run" like the picture in question?

 

The prop blades turn radially to the direction of travel. On the longitudinal axis, they are pretty much at a standstill. The plane is literally dragging them along the ground, and since the ground is magnitudes more dense than air, what little air pressure is exerted on the blades can't even come close to the opposing force exerted on them by even soft earth.