The A2A Simulations Community

Most of my flying so far has been in the MkIIb.

I can start from cold and climb out OK - with radiators fully open. Even after levelling out at 3,000ft and taking the pitch back to as coarse as I feel comfortable (mixture still fully rich), the temperature seems very reluctant to come down. It does, *eventually*

However - the *real* problems start when I try to land. On a regular pattern, with wheels down on (short) finals and leaving flaps till fairly late, I can't seem to have enough lee-way to taxi without boiling over. All this at various combinations of pitch/boost/mixture (radiators fully open).

I'm flying in real weather - and it's *hot* here in NZ at the moment ... so my O.A.T. is around 20C, which won't help, I know.

How on earth did pilots keep cool in combat? How did the Spits cope in Africa/Malta/the Far East?

This sounds a bit negative - but I don't mean it to be. Managing the engine via Accusim is adds so much to FSX. I can hardly bear to fly a "normal" aircraft any more!

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www.nzfsim.org

By the time the RAF was operating in those areas extensively with Spits the engine had been further developed, and specific variants for hotter climates had been developed.

RCAF Spits in Malta with Vokes fliters (they actually may be Aboukir filters but killratio would know better then I would).



If you are flying in hot climates in the variants we have you need to cruise way above 3,000 ft. Get up to 13k - 15k or so and the air is much colder. May need to be even higher but I haven't tried myself yet.

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Nope, you're right...they are the Vokes Filters...the Aboukir doesn't come as far forward, has a wider mouth and tilts downward slightly.


Alan,

The cooling IS accurate. A lot of time went into this. Search the forum and you will see it widely discussed. The Baby Spitfires are completely intolerant of incorrect engine management. If you want to fly her properly you need to fly her as she was flown. Any other way will be tears befor teatime I'm afraid.

Read the radiator tutorial and the Pilot's Notes and procedures and then practice. Once you know her quirks she is quite easy to fly...but not one you can just "hop in and go".

Accu-sim means exactly that.......


regards


Darryl

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...Some say he never blinks, and that he roams around the woods at night foraging for Merlin parts...

That scoop filter thing on the front makes it look like it's going "Ooooo", I don't like that at all, totally spoils the lines IMO.

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Tony

Intel core i7-2600 3.40GHz, 16GB DDR3-1600 Ram, GT430 1GB Graphics, Windows 7 Premium 64bit, FSX Gold Acceleration. REX 2.0 overdrive, TrackIR 5, Saitek X52Pro, CH Rudder Pedals, Saitek Cyborg X.

Thanks Darryl ... I'm sure you're way better placed to know than I am (no sarcasm intended!).

I've gone through the manual(s) a few times but still can't quite get it right. I suppose my mistake may be that I'm only doing a short hop - climbing to 4,000ft max before descending to the destination airfield (Ardmore to Whenuapai, Auckland ... to be precise). So ... I never really get high enough to cool the engine down (??). By the same token, a throttled back descent from higher than 4,000ft is bound to allow the engine to cool down - coasting down for longer. Maybe I'll whizz over to the UK for my next sortie. Duxford in February should be about right, LOL!

How the heck did these early Spitfires scramble on a hot summer's day (albeit in England) ... and climb as high as they could, as fast as possible without blowing up?!! Considering some of these pilots only had a few Spit hours on the clock, it's an astonishing feat of airmanship ... before they even got near the Hun!

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www.nzfsim.org

I agree 100%, but when you are operating in the heat you need it to work, pretty or not.

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Big filters....actually guys these are to filter out dust and dirt from desert flying rather than to improve cooling.

And yes, they are the most disgraceful debasement of art ever inflicted upon the poor Spitifre!!!

Adam,

I spent a large chunk of my time helping to get the cooling issue sorted. The constant pressure was the standoff between "user friendly" and "accurate". I always held my line that "accurate" was more important and *hoped* the community would accept that. This was a luxury I had, as it wasn't MY money financing the development. To their everlasting credit "accurate" was set as the benchmark by Scott and the guys.

I am thrilled (and not a little relieved!!) that , since release, the overwhelming reaction has been "gee this is hard, I want to master this" as opposed to "this is hard...it can't be right".

There are several things which got Spitfires into the air quickly in 1940:

1. Pre warming, checking.
Oftentimes the runup checks had been done by acks. So when the SCRAMBLE bell rang, the acks restarted the engines and the pilot jumped in and pretty much got going without the usual formalities. A good squadron was reckoned to be able to get into the air within two minutes. No time for checks there!!

2. Pilots trained to know what they were doing.
It has long been a bugbear of mine that anybody can jump into flight sim and get an aircraft up and down and "survive". Despite what you see in the movies, there is so close to nil chance of this happening in RL, it is not funny.

You do not need (and I don't want you to ) know how well (Ok, badly) I perform in a B-17 Accusim or the P-47. ... training and practice..... I lack both.

3. They did boil.
If the situation was desperate enough limits were pushed, some good pilots got away with it, some boiled but managed to keep going and some RTB'd.

cheers


Darryl

(Oh, and my apologies for the "alan".... )

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...Some say he never blinks, and that he roams around the woods at night foraging for Merlin parts...

You may want to add "clipped wings" to that

Darryl ... No problems with "Alan" (whoever he is )

I'm [also] relieved to read your post ... and that the you and the "accuracy" camp got their way. It just makes me want to try harder

I'm a long time simmer, so fully understand that we do "stuff" in sims that we could never get away with in RL. I suppose the measure of any good sim is that it behaves like a "true" sim - and that it teaches you the *correct* flying skills/procedures, regardless of aircraft. The Accusim Spit certainly raises the bar in that respect!

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www.nzfsim.org

I had a few flights with around 24°C OAT on ground level and I managed to keep her cool long enough to taxi to the parking spot and letting her run a bit before shutdown without hitting 120°. The secret lies in cooling the engine down enough before even attempting a landing. I try to go for around 90° radiator temp before going in for a landing, or less if possible. I do that either by fully opening the radiator in the final stages of the preceding cruise flight or by using as little power as possible without windmilling the prop during descent while maintaining a good airflow through the radiator. Since I have to lose some speed during descent anyway, I keep the radiator fully open at that point as well. Only when I need power again for the final approach I set the radiator back to normal in order to reduce air resistance. And of course I lower the gear and flaps as late as possible, because both obstruct the airflow.

As soon as the gear makes proper contact I raise the flaps and fully open the radiator again while keeping the engine only just above fouling RPM during taxiing. That usually does the trick. I haven't seen any steam venting in about 10 flights now.

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Happy Landings
- Patrick

Yes - good post, thanks Jigsaw. I just tried another flight *by the book* and found that when I climbed to a decent altitude (14k in my case) everything was hunky-dory and I had plenty of options for my approach and landing (similar to how you describe it). No ticking off from the mechanics this time!

I suppose my original problem was the length of the flight ie. not enough time to climb up to cooler air or have a nice cool windmill down.

I'm wondering now, that when I see Spits being displayed, that this explains why they take off, disappear somewhere for 15 mins (presumably to get fully warmed up/checked out), do their display, then make what appears to be a very long/wide circuit for landing (presumably to lose all that heat generated by the aerobatics).

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www.nzfsim.org

Exactly Adam. This spit will overheat on a long final with gear and flaps down, so you definately want to come into that situation with a cool engine. This is usually pretty easy as you are coming down in altitude, the engine definately cools down.

Scott.

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A2A Simulations Inc.

Of course not diving too fast while having it full open Cooling it too fast (shock cooling) is hard on the engine is well. It does nasty things to metal bits.

I am sure you know that Jigsaw.. just making sure Adam does

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Of course. So far the engine results speak for me. I'm in the 6th hour of engine life on my MkIa (same as the airframe) and don't have any problems to speak of. There is a slight degradation in compression but it's negligible.

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Happy Landings
- Patrick

Hmmmm ... I'm sorry to say that all my "experiments" have proved costly. As long as they don't put the repairs on my mess bill, I'll be OK

Incidentally ... is there an easy way of resetting the stats? So I can start off with a new aircraft (and take better care of it, this time)?

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www.nzfsim.org

Go to:

C:\Users\<Username>\Documents\A2A\FSX\Spitfire

And delete any files found there. Re-start the game and your hours are reset.

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