flightace37

I was going to try to explain it myself, but here's something with more detail: http://www.innovatemotorsports.com/resources/rich.php

From what you've posted (several times), it's pretty clear that the trouble is with your engine. The things that apply, most of which has been mentioned already: Mission conditions: Spring 15*C and Sunny, Ramp Start RPM: 2700 MP: 46" Magnetos: Both Fuel Boost: On Carb Levers: Full forward Coolers: Automatic (up) with black covers closed Fuel Shutoff: On Fuel tank: Something with enough gas in it (check all 3 onboard tanks) Blower: Automatic Mixture: Run (the middle position) Throttle: As needed There may be issues associated with air induction. Keep your speed up to ensure there is enough ram air coming to the engine. When I climbed through the 20k range, I kept 200-230 mph indicated and rode that most of the way up to 29k. The second supercharger stage kicks in somewhere around 19000 feet, which is about the time your stutters start. Try maintaining 46" mercury and riding through the stutters. Don't reduce power below 46" just to make them go away. Other than that, make sure to turn off random system failures...

Nice article(s), Ivan. Re-reading my post a few hours later (and then reading yours) made me realize just how much I left out. From waylander's language, I thought he was treating the MFBL as a "put the pipper here to hit the target" indicator and my concern was just to correct that notion. I did a very poor job of that with the wording I chose. You absolutely have to account for plane of motion when lining up a shot. Just placing the pipper on the target without regard for maneuvering doesn't give you a firing solution whatsoever. The fact is, if you're not in the target's plane of motion, that pipper isn't going to stay put during the 1.2x TOF time delay. Thanks for the tip about the blanking lever. I'll put that to use the next time I'm up to shoot something. I do have one thing that I'd like clarified. Consider that you're in the target's plane of motion with high TCA, moving towards an overshoot while pulling lead for a gun shot. You could keep the pipper on the target by pulling more and more G while reducing the range setting to match target wingspan as you close the distance (up to a point). Now, the sight has a settling time. Given that conditions are rapidly changing, does the settling time invalidate the displayed firing solution? I know you can certainly add some kentucky windage, but I'm talking strictly about the computed solution.

You mean the little bore sight + mark? That doesn't show up in pure gyro mode for me either. You can switch to fixed+gyro mode to overlay the full fixed sight and use that to help you learn expected lead angles. As far as aiming with the K-14A is concerned, you just place the pipper on the target without any regard for where the fixed sight is pointed. Place the dot on the target, adjust the range until the ring is set to apparent wingspan, hold for a short time to let the sight recompute, then pull the trigger.

Yep. Make sure guns are armed on the front switch panel and turn on gyro power on the gunsight panel on the upper left of the dash (switch pointed down and right). You can then use the rotary there to cycle between the different sight modes. The wingspan and range dials work, but range seems to be pretty limited at the moment unless I'm missing some kind of override to allow it to go beyond about 250 yards. There are graduations for further distances, but I usually set it around 150 anyway, and I'm not sure what the modeled convergence is.

Had no issues getting up to 29,000 the other night. Set 2700 RPM, 46" mercury, and make sure your carburetor controls are full forward. Cooler switches should be on automatic. Keep the speed up and climb gradually. The P-51 only does 3200 fpm at sea level, and that falls off rapidly as altitude increases. I could do about 1000 fpm at 29K. Remember also that when the blower hits critical altitude somewhere around 19,000 (depending on air temperature, etc), you will need to make a power adjustment to maintain 46" mercury. You'll also have to increase throttle from time to time to maintain pressure. It's okay to max the throttle out if that's what it takes to get 46", but don't go over that figure. Any higher RPM and manifold pressure will kill your engine over the course of a few minutes (which is why it started stuttering), initially robbing you of some power, then the ability to fly altogether. Check the right cockpit wall for the engine limitations panel. Treat that (Packard) Merlin right and it'll do what you want.

Wags, I downloaded your mission and ran it a few times before I finally got the hang of the aircraft in a fight. The odd thing is the engine cuts out for 15-20 seconds at mission start, even though RPM and manifold pressure are showing good. I end up starting the fight at a speed disadvantage, and the AI does an incredible job of using that against me. The engine cut out happens no matter how I start and/or play with the throttle. Here's a trackfile so you can see the issue. I'm not sure what's going on with it. The aircraft also feels very different for the first minute of the fight when compared to the rest of it. The Aux tank is empty, so I'm not sure what's causing that either. The change could be attributed to altitude combined with low starting IAS, since I ended up dragging the guy down lower after losing him in the sun. Congratulations on some killer AI. This guy was pulling rope-a-dopes on me in some of the earlier fights. Mouse1v1HighAI.trk

Just FYI, the ME radio frequency tab has some beta issues. I'm not yet 100% sure what triggers it, but if you select all the text in one of the 4 boxes and punch in a new number, you might find that clicking another tab/out of the P-51 options then coming back to the radio tab resets all the other frequencies to 100. I've been successful in setting the frequencies by starting in channel A and carefully placing the cursor after the last digit, then erasing with backspace to the beginning and typing in the new number. You may or may not need to set each frequency to get the changes to stick correctly on all of them. I recommend using channel B as your tower frequency, in keeping with standard practices. This thing must be a crystal radio. :thumbup:

Setting either a C-130 or a group of HMMWVs to be immortal in the mission editor is not actually making them immortal when I run the mission. I tried two methods: triggerable action on the groups triggered by mission start, and waypoint-based Perform Command. Also, my group of HMMWVs got stuck when a group of ZSU-packing Urals took out several of their vehicles, including the one that was out in front at the time. One HMMWV ended up doing circles around another for several minutes and did not manage to break out of it when I closed down the mission. Here's a video showing just barely enough time to see the AI doing circles:

Headspace, This is not something available now, but food for thought for the devs to further support your project, while retaining their designs to prevent cheating (statement a few posts ago about exporting all player aircraft coordinates). Something to collaborate on with the devs if it's possible to have changes made to what the engine can export. :) Sorry for the confusion. - WH_Mouse

Instead of exporting the exact location of every aircraft, why not use the engine's built-in capabilities and do this: For every player currently flying, export the list of players within radio range of that player, broken down by radio type. That way no one needs to know where the aircraft are explicitly. In the same listing, you could also export a flag indicating blue or red force for TS separation of teams. "Within radio range" would mean the engine's definition of actually being able to receive a transmission, ala terrain masking, etc. You could do it for both the AM and FM radios if you like. You could also export a variable that indicates quality of the transmission, ie floating point 0-1, where 1 is crystal clear, 0 is pure white noise. A separate "dead list" could be exported without all the extra information, save for maybe team flags. This solution gets rid of most of the worries about someone using the position exports for cheating, and brings it under direct control of the game engine as much as possible while giving radio plugins the information they need. - WH_Mouse