Ultra Posted September 12, 2014 Posted September 12, 2014 When is it appropriate to have the pitot heat and the gun heat ON? Always? Or are there negative consequences to having them always on?
kontiuka Posted September 12, 2014 Posted September 12, 2014 In winter conditions and high altitudes, it's probably best to have them on. I'm guessing there might be a small impact to your engine performance in certain cases. Not sure.
Art-J Posted September 12, 2014 Posted September 12, 2014 At first I thought they were useless gimmicks (didn't know how detailed DCS weather modelling and its influence on aircraft was)... ... until I saw a youtube clip on which a novice guy crashed his DCS Mustang during landing attempt (winter map!), because his speedo was giving some bullcrap indications (his wingman landed fine, but he had pitot heat on). Now whenever I fly on winter map, I keep the heater on all the time, just in case :D. I have no idea, however, if malfunction of unheated guns is modelled, 'cause I ususally don't fly very high. Will have to run some tests for sure. i7 9700K @ stock speed, single GTX1070, 32 gigs of RAM, TH Warthog, MFG Crosswind, Win10.
Screamadelica Posted September 13, 2014 Posted September 13, 2014 The Pitot intake is usually located on the underneath or edge of the wing and allows the aircraft instruments to correctly read the airspeed and other atmospherics. If this ices over you will get incorrect readings on various gauges, mainly airspeed and altitude. The Pitot Heater should be left turned off whilst the aircraft is on the ground and then turned on once you are airborne. Hope this helps, Cheers, Scream. :)
Ultra Posted September 13, 2014 Author Posted September 13, 2014 Thanks guys. What Scream said sounds about right for the pitot tubes. For the gun heat I just assume it only needs to be used for cold temps or high altitude.
Zabuzard Posted September 13, 2014 Posted September 13, 2014 When is it appropriate to have the pitot heat and the gun heat ON? Always? Or are there negative consequences to having them always on? The pitot heat should be always set to ON inflight and the gun heater should be set to ON if temperature falls below 1°C. Both heaters should always be set to OFF while on ground because not enough airflow through the air scoop is avaiable to cool the devices enough, this can lead to a malfunction. If you don't set the heats to on when you should the devices can be put on ice if diving, flying high or if it's snowing.
Zabuzard Posted September 15, 2014 Posted September 15, 2014 I know the DCS P-51D manual says the Landing Light can overheat and burn out if you leave it one for a long time when the gear is retracted, so maybe the same sort of thing can happen to your gun heaters if you have them on while sitting on a blazing hot tarmac. Never had it happen to me though. Correct, IRL the guns can overheat due to excessive usage of gun heaters while no sufficiant airflow to cool the device is available. The same applies to the pitot tube. Thats the reason why you should have both turned off at the ground and turn the gun heater on only below ~1°C.
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