FE: CAN I TAKE THE MIXTURE CONTROL OUT OF HIS HANDS?

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daniel_prates
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FE: CAN I TAKE THE MIXTURE CONTROL OUT OF HIS HANDS?

Post by daniel_prates »

I recently bought the accusim B17 (wonderful, by the way).

There, you have a little more liberty to give or take away functions to/from the co-pilot. There are separate buttons for the RPM, the COWL FLAPS and the INTERCOOLER. So say I want him to manage one of those, but not the other two. Or the other way around. No problem!

With the Connie I always have the same problem: after reaching cruise altitude, the 'flight phase' keeps showing as in 'climb', doesn't matter what I do, so the FE keeps mixture at 'rich'. Since I either turn him full on or off, there is no way I can reduce that mixture. So my range suffers a lot.

I wrote about this before. Answers were of the following type: "usually I do this or that and the phase changes to 'cruise' so its no problem". That is great but it does not work for me, it does not matter how high I climb or how low I bring my RPMs and MP.

So, is there a way I can take the mixture controls off the FE, without turning him off? If not, could the team please consider changing it tom something more akin of what happens in the B17, where you automate some features but not others?

Thanks!

AviationAtWar
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Re: FE: CAN I TAKE THE MIXTURE CONTROL OUT OF HIS HANDS?

Post by AviationAtWar »

It will automatically switch to cruise and he'll pull the mixtures back to lean when you bring torque PSI low enough (under 140 PSI and 29" MP I believe). You can reach back and pull the mixtures back yourself though and the flight engineer won't move them again until you're landing.

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WB_FlashOver
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Re: FE: CAN I TAKE THE MIXTURE CONTROL OUT OF HIS HANDS?

Post by WB_FlashOver »

It's been a long times sense I've let him have control of engines and blowers but as stated by AAW above, he should pull mixture to lean once power is reduced & level flight is set. If Flight Stage is not changing to Cruise then maybe the power is not reduced enough or level flight (level enough) is not achieved. Level flight needs to be held for several minutes with power reduced to cruise settings for the flight stage to change to cruise. If you are climbing or descending at all, I guess 50-100 fpm, the sim does not assume that Cruise has been achieved. Once 'Cruise' is achieved the mixture should be adjusted by the FE. Also, and I don't think this is it, make sure auto mixture is not enabled in sim settings.

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daniel_prates
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Re: FE: CAN I TAKE THE MIXTURE CONTROL OUT OF HIS HANDS?

Post by daniel_prates »

Ok I'll try all of that. I was trying to force the cruise phase to start by lowering RPMs and MP, but it did not occur me to check the torque too.

Thanks!

daniel_prates
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Re: FE: CAN I TAKE THE MIXTURE CONTROL OUT OF HIS HANDS?

Post by daniel_prates »

@aviationatwar I have tested your suggestion, viz, "You can reach back and pull the mixtures back yourself though and the flight engineer won't move them again until you're landing" but that is actually not true in my case, the FE will push the mixture levers up a few moments after I have pulled them back.

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Re: FE: CAN I TAKE THE MIXTURE CONTROL OUT OF HIS HANDS?

Post by AviationAtWar »

What are your manifold pressures, RPM and torque PSI when that's happening? That was always the way I flew mine.

daniel_prates
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Re: FE: CAN I TAKE THE MIXTURE CONTROL OUT OF HIS HANDS?

Post by daniel_prates »

@aviationatwar sorry for taking this long to reply.

Yes, you are right. I did some testing and, if you stay below what the pilot helper states as being cruise settings (''29, 2300 rpm, 140psi), you get the FE to consider you in 'cruise' mode. However it also demands you to be perfectly level (or near that), which I am not quite achieving since at 4x compression time, it is bound to bounce up and down and eventually get the FE to consider me in 'climb'.

I still think the game should let me take the supercharger control out of the FE's hands! But anyway.

So now I ask you fellows: what is your preferred method to keep the plane perfectly level? And during compressed time?

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Re: FE: CAN I TAKE THE MIXTURE CONTROL OUT OF HIS HANDS?

Post by AviationAtWar »

I don't fly with time compression since Accusim doesn't support it, but you should be able to set altitude hold with FSX default autopilot or Control+Z. If neither of these will keep it steady then I don't think anything will do it with using time compression.

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