Did engine malfunctions become a thing in the last update?

[Noisemaker]

Well, the title sets the tone, so a little backstory to fill in the details.

Flew some mission in the Spit Vb on the Kuban map today.  Got the newest paper, and the headline was Soviet pilots unhappy with the Spitfire (Or something similar).  Gist of the article was complaints about the reliability and maintenance of the spitfires.  First mission of the day, bomber escort.  Easy peasy, I think.  Let's add a couple of the new transfers to the flight to give them some flight hours.  Take off, all good, climb to station, all good.  Turn to meet the bomber squadron and suddenly, "Acacia, Stork 3 requesting landing".  I look back and I see one of my Spits diving back to the airfield streaming black smoke. 

What can I do?  Nothing, continue the mission.

After mission completion, report is 2 Spitfires destroyed (no deaths, no injuries).  After action map shows 2 Spits down just outside our airbase. 

Now obviously there wasn't some of catastrophic failure, like a collision, and there were no enemy fighters about.  Given the very prescient newspaper article, I'm left wondering...  Are random failures now a yet to be revealed feature?

[Semor76]

Unfortunately,  no. But I would like to see this in the GB series at least as an option for the player.

[G_Schwarz]

if you push the engine to it's limit it will brake and you may have to glide your way down

[BornToBattle]

I had this happen once while flying a mission during career mode. We were outbound about 5 minutes into the flight when I saw one of ours headed south towards terra firma to the left and below. At the time there were two flights of us and the second flight tailing is was climbing into position. I wasn’t recording at the time, wish I had been. I suspect two AI’s collided while trying to form up.like you also, no enemies were in the area.

[Noisemaker]

1 hour ago, BornToBattle said:

I had this happen once while flying a mission during career mode. We were outbound about 5 minutes into the flight when I saw one of ours headed south towards terra firma to the left and below. At the time there were two flights of us and the second flight tailing is was climbing into position. I wasn’t recording at the time, wish I had been. I suspect two AI’s collided while trying to form up.like you also, no enemies were in the area.

Yeah, in my case very similar, except the plane I saw was streaming black smoke, typical of engine damage, not collision.  That and the fact that both aircraft were lost (crashed) without pilot loss or injury had me wondering.

[BornToBattle]

19 minutes ago, Noisemaker said:

Yeah, in my case very similar, except the plane I saw was streaming black smoke, typical of engine damage, not collision.  That and the fact that both aircraft were lost (crashed) without pilot loss or injury had me wondering.

I guess the question has been answered above. Could it have had happened that one of the Spitfires actually had a fire start after a collision or at least sustained serious engine damage? The post mortem with both pilots surviving but both aircraft written off as a loss could mean a collision with both pilots bailing out successfully or even both managed to ditch successfully as in still alive but plane written off as a loss. Just conjecture on my part though.

 

Perhaps Luke, Gambit or one of the other testers here will chime in.

[Noisemaker]

1 minute ago, BornToBattle said:

I guess the question has been answered above. Could it have had happened that one of the Spitfires actually had a fire start after a collision or at least sustained serious engine damage? The post mortem with both pilots surviving but both aircraft written off as a loss could mean a collision with both pilots bailing out successfully or even both managed to ditch successfully as in still alive but plane written off as a loss. Just conjecture on my part though.

 

Perhaps Luke, Gambit or one of the other testers here will chime in.

It wasn't a fire, more like the smokey engine you get after a hit to the oil radiator, or run the engine too fast and too long.  I think I can rule out a collision, as that should have had a more dramatic and catastrophic conclusion.  That said, I only saw it briefly.  The fact that both parties crashed on the fence of the airfield made me wonder.  

[Vortice]

Try flying a Spitfire on a mission with autopilot engaged, then watch the RPM and boost gauges and you will see what the AI likes to do with the Merlin engine.

 

I've seen AI Spitfire wingmen detonate their engines in the middle of a massive furball due to pushing them too hard. The ones that haven't managed to shoot each other down when strafing ground targets, that is.

 

The AI might be artificial, but they are certainly not intelligent.

[Shakey60]

I recently had number 4 AI call RTB just after takeoff so I looked back and he was puling away streaming smoke. The rest of the flight continued on.

 

Yesterday, flying a p38, as I was lifting off and raising my gear, I heard a strange grinding noise and my right engine abruptly quit. RPM and manifold pressure were within limits, 3000 and 54". 

 

Strange if random failures are not modeled but still exciting.

[unreasonable]

17 hours ago, Noisemaker said:

It wasn't a fire, more like the smokey engine you get after a hit to the oil radiator, or run the engine too fast and too long.  I think I can rule out a collision, as that should have had a more dramatic and catastrophic conclusion.  That said, I only saw it briefly.  The fact that both parties crashed on the fence of the airfield made me wonder.  

 

I would put good money on a collision, happened all the time in my career escort missions, particularly if the flight leader (you or AI) makes a sharp change of direction. If the collision touched props but did not break wings off a controlled crash is possible.  The bombers do it too - sometimes the mission makes them do a very sharp turn right over your airfield and the survivors never completely get back into formation. Not sure if that mission design logic has been fixed yet. 

 

 

1 hour ago, Shakey60 said:

I recently had number 4 AI call RTB just after takeoff so I looked back and he was puling away streaming smoke. The rest of the flight continued on.

 

Yesterday, flying a p38, as I was lifting off and raising my gear, I heard a strange grinding noise and my right engine abruptly quit. RPM and manifold pressure were within limits, 3000 and 54". 

 

Strange if random failures are not modeled but still exciting.

 

Bird strike?   I suppose there is also the possibility of so far unidentified map errors with invisible obstacles, although in the cases of that I have seen your plane just tends to stop dead.

[Shakey60]

The only thing that has stopped me dead is the ground.

 

Many times.?

[Noisemaker]

3 hours ago, unreasonable said:

 

 

Bird strike?   I suppose there is also the possibility of so far unidentified map errors with invisible obstacles, although in the cases of that I have seen your plane just tends to stop dead.

 

Ooh, birds!  That's what I'm missing in this game!  Imagine flying your U2 alongside a flock of migrating geese.  That's immersion!  Devs, I know you're busy working on BoN, but can you assign one person from the team to model in some birds?  I mean, if subsims from 20 years ago have them...