grafspee

I think it was something like 4000ft but i could be wrong here, but definitely blinker won't bling at SL

I wonder which version it would be. I hope it will be F6F-5

In game which i recorded it, uncoordinated or coordinated turns makes no difference. So i don't focus to keep turn coordinated.

We might have massive lag inbound

@Bloyamindonly spitfires with single coolers had overheat problem. Ambient temp plays big role here

At high alt, high mach number decrease wing lift too with addition to low IAS, pilot has to fly very carefully.

@Art-J At 52C oil temp, going for full power won't be an issue. And clearing sparks every 30 min was just precaution, report which i paste in couple posts earlier states that engine roughness appear after couple hours of low power cruise. Another thing is that sparkplugs had to be changed or cleared by ground crew eventually because high power plug clean wasn't cleaning them completely.

Problem is with poor lighting, because he have flood lights on but illumination is just terrible. Flood light points straight at dashboard and nothing pure black plate. there is strong glow effect at the exit of flood light which should not be there.

@Nealiusif you can't ID, then it is UFO

When ED introduce 150 octane fuel some day, proper warming up and ground operations like pre take off checks will be so important, other wise you won't fly anywhere

This is from P-51 manual Definitely no need for 3 minutes of high power, imho 30sec of high power each 30min should be enough to prevent fouling. BTW i love those drawings from US manuals The highest fouling happens at low power and rich mixture so, in case early P-51s don't know about Spitfires, you had 4 position mixture control like we have in P-47 now, if you go for cruise and forget to lean mixture you will get serious fouling with in maybe 20-30 min. But what i've read about this topic including 150 octane fuel test, roughness may appear after couple hour low power cruise and this was said about 150 octane fuel so with fully automatic mixtures in our Spitfire or P-51 and 130 octane fuel spark plug fouling should not be a big deal at all. Take note that engine roughness is serious situation, when appears you are in trouble. The highest fouling appear to happen at idle engine speed while taxing or waiting for your turn to take off, a lot less in flight. I totally agree that running high power for 3 min each 15min of flight would defeat the purpose 1 min of max power each 30 min looks much more resonable. Since spitfire has no stop gate for emergency power, power setting for spark plugs clean up would be +15 boost or what ever max boost you can achieve at cruise alt and 3000rpm, it is obvious that 15boost won't be available if you cruise at 30k ft It is very important to take off with high power but if you take off with low power which a lot Spitfire pilots do, it is recommended to increase to max power after take off to clean spark plugs from ground operations, fail to do so will contribute to faster fouling in cruise flight. Part of Spitfire pilot's notes

@peachmonkey I went through same way, started with twist and upgraded to rudder pedals, at the beginning it was a nightmare for me, but reason at least for me was that i was used to twist and my brain was prioritizing hand twisting over legs movement. Once you learn so called muscle memory it is much harder to learn other way. Imho if you have enough founds, go straight for rudder pedals, if not, what i can say, you have no choice but to use twist joystick, like me hehe

Actually P-51 has lower gains from 150 then spitfire, because afaik only 72" MAP was allowed for P-51

If pilot ignore sparkplug fouling symptoms, when serious fouling occur, you can expect that some cylinders will miss fire and eventually power loss will be so significant that you will no longer be able to maintain alt. I don't know if this is modeled but when cylinder stops firing due to sparkplug fouling there is no way to fix that in flight only by replacing sparkplugs. Main effect of fouled sparkplugs is lost of power and this is very important thing during engine run up or engine test before take off, if rpm of the engine are lower then expected or rpm drop on mags check is higher then expected this indicates problem with sparkplugs. Screen shot from P-51 manual.

@Art-J I know that K-4 has this, at low power cruise you can notice speed drop and pitch of the prop decreasing.

Don't forget to exercise engine before take off, this will bring temps even higher

It is mentioned in some manuals, but clearing sparkplugs was well known procedure so it may not be in all manuals. How to clean sparkplugs in flight ? You just need to use higher power for every 20 min of low power cruise (example 2000rpm at 0 boost), also you can do spark plug cleaning before landing if you are planning to take off again with same plane. Using climb power for couple minutes is enough to clear sparkplugs. Back in ww2 times they used high lead fuels to get high octane ratings at low power setting lead buildup on sparkplugs, at higher power lead would burnout from sparkplugs, if we would have 150 fuel available this issue would be a nightmare, sparkplugs cleaning had to be done more frequent. Now, warbirds uses in most cases modern low lead fuels so this issue do not exist.

@zcrazyx 25lbs boost, for US plane it would be 80 InHg that is hell of the boost, mosquito would be fast, probably as fast as Dora or K-4 Just imagine the bomber which even Dora or K-4 could not catch up

I'm not talking about minimal coolant or oil temp, i'm talking about thermostatic valve in coolant circuit which divert coolant entirely to pump inlet by passing radiators at coolant temp below 80C Remember that RR manual says that thermostat ,if mounted, were set to approximately 80C, so small variation could happen.

@303_Kermit Looks like thermostat doing the job in real plane Temp does diver only by 10C between different flight phases climb, dive , cruise.

@71st_AH Rob Agree, but in that case spit should not have thermostat at all, in flight by closing throttle we should be able to over-cool engine. Thermostat definitely would not be removed if spit had any issues with over-cooling. Conclusion: cooling model is wrong then

@Yo-Yo As this manual says, it may be installed, but if it is setting is around 80C And think that those guys who wrote DCS manual, took this thing for thin air. What i know is that not all mk IX had thermostat in cooling system, just read that in manual

This is what i'm talking about. If thermostat is set to 80C and at temps below, it cuts off radiators so how it is possible to temp goes below 60C in flight at moderate power ?? And i just said that coolant temps at 50C are not good for engines. And you said in previous post that 50C is ok because 60C is minimal temp for take off. Thermostat valve will maintain 80C as manual says until thermostat valve reach maximum opening, then thermostat is removed from equation. Temps will go up until radiator effectives become high enough to stop temp rising. So at low power setting expected coolant temp should be 80C not 40C or 10C

Dcs spitfire manual says that thermostat is set at 80C and below this temp all coolant is directed in to pump inlet bypassing radiators. So ED should make up mind on this matter. If thermostat is set at 50C manual should be corrected or set thermostat to 80C. I don't believe that 50C is ok for engine, low oil temp favors oil dilution with fuel and water. If every manual states that thermostat is set to 80C why not do that? P-51 may have the similar engine but cooling system is done way different. Mustang regulates temp via shutter doors and spitfire via thermostat and shutter doors which has 2 positions only, full open and normal operation position.