Engine problems

[smokey_mkii]

Hi all, new to IL-2 and flight sims in general. I'm having a recurring problem in my Yak-1. She's a beautiful machine, full of grace and fury, who likes to randomly switch her engine off in mid air for reasons I can't discern. I'll be happily flying around, and all of a sudden the engine will splutter, switch off, then restart itself. But when it does, I don't seem to have any power. I slow down to about 200 kph unless I dive to gain airspeed, then I eventually end up having to ditch. I have no idea why this keeps happening.

Honestly, it's quite funny, and adds an element of je ne cest quois to never be certain when my bird is just going to decide it can't be arsed partway through a mission. But I feel like I should probably figure out why it's happening so I can stop wasting materiel. It's happened a few times when I've come in for landing, fudged it, and had to pull up to try and go for another try. This time it happened at 2749 m up over German territory, which is less fun. Looking at my gauges, my manifold pressure seems to be zero, which sounds bad. I feel like whatever manifold pressure is, my plane probably needs it, or there wouldn't be a little clock on the plane to tell you you haven't got any.

[THERION]

Maybe you should have a look at your mixture, maybe too lean?

[smokey_mkii]

3 minutes ago, THERION said:

Maybe you should have a look at your mixture, maybe too lean?

I've not been touching my mixture much, but I've looked into it just now and I don't think it's that. I set my mixture to 75% and the message telling me 'change your mixture' went away, but power was still whack. THEN I MOVED MY THROTTLE CONTROL.

So, it looks like at the very least, THIS TIME the lack of power after the engine cut out might be a hardware/software integration issue. As soon as I moved the throttle, power came back. I think maybe because my throttle axis was static it assumed the last known power setting (which was, like, engine switched off) was correct? I have no idea if I didn't touch my throttle last few times. 

It still doesn't really explain why my engine cut out randomly in mid-flight though.

[THERION]

2 hours ago, smokey_mkii said:

I've not been touching my mixture much, but I've looked into it just now and I don't think it's that. I set my mixture to 75% and the message telling me 'change your mixture' went away, but power was still whack. THEN I MOVED MY THROTTLE CONTROL.

So, it looks like at the very least, THIS TIME the lack of power after the engine cut out might be a hardware/software integration issue. As soon as I moved the throttle, power came back. I think maybe because my throttle axis was static it assumed the last known power setting (which was, like, engine switched off) was correct? I have no idea if I didn't touch my throttle last few times. 

It still doesn't really explain why my engine cut out randomly in mid-flight though.

 

OK - to me it sounds like you have some assistants activated in the realism panel. I strongly recommend to deactivate any of those assistants in the realism panel.

Those assistants sometimes do strange things and this will not help you to get into correct engine management. Here is picture of the realism panel:

 

 

As you can see there are 2 presets - Normal and Expert. Now on the right part you can see all the realism options available in the game. According to the preset

you choose - f.ex. Normal (green), you will see all option checkboxes corresponding to the preset you chose. The picture shown here are actually my realism settings.

I chose the Normal preset and then deactivated most of the green checkboxes - result is now Custom preset. The option "unlimited ammo" is only on when I fly

some quick missions. If I play some scripted campaigns, I turn it off.

 

Also check your input devices in Windows - do they act correctly or erratic? Next you can also check your axis in the game too.

[SAG]

to me it sounds like your engine overheated and died, when this happens your

engine sometimes turns on for a bit then back off 

[smokey_mkii]

On 8/22/2020 at 4:59 AM, SAG said:

to me it sounds like your engine overheated and died, when this happens your

engine sometimes turns on for a bit then back off 

Yeah, maybe this. Perhaps I was over-stressing it somehow. 

[WM_KMS]

I noticed this when I first started playing, I flew an entire mission at full throttle in an I-16, it shut down, I crashed, I always lower throttle to below the boost level and in Russian planes I lower it to 75% while en-route

[noelcollins84]

some joysticks have phantom inputs if they are underpowered. This happens with mine where i'll be flying along, then suddenly drop all bombs, turn lights on and eject.

 

I'm buying a powered USB hub which i understand may help it. I suggest moving the engine start keybind to another button on your joystick. 

 

If its not bound to joystick then ignore above.

[Reggie_Mental]

I've always found the Russian aircraft to have robust engines that you can roar about with the taps fully open for most of the time. But I always cruise at 55% avg nowadays. The only overheats and shutdowns I have ever had were in the I -16 (once) and the LaGG-3 (3 times) but in at least half the cases I was able to restart the engine.

[cardboard_killer]

The only times I've broken one of the Yak's engines was when I got too slow and overheat during a turning fight. They are the definition of robust in this game. Indeed, they soured me on the lend lease planes.