Landing Speed Bug?

[BastiScholz]

Hi guys,

I am experiencing a very weird bug while playing the Enemy within 3.0 Campaign. After each Missing, when I am close to the Airport and prepare for landing, all of a sudden the airspeed of my A10 drops down to 50mph. It does this, even if I go full throttle. At this point the Plane should just drop out of the sky, right? 

Well, it doesn't. I can land as normal but I have to guesstimate the speed, scince the measuring is completely off. Just right before touchdown the airspeed rises up again. 

This is very very confusing. Must be a bug, right? 

[razo+r]

The plane should not drop out of the sky simply because the pitot is most likely frozen and thus provides false speed reading.

 

Turn on pitot heat.

 

And by the way, you don't have to guess the speed. You can use your AoA indicator, which works even with frozen pitot tubes.

Edited November 7, 2021 by razo+r

[jaylw314]

33 minutes ago, BastiScholz said:

Hi guys,

I am experiencing a very weird bug while playing the Enemy within 3.0 Campaign. After each Missing, when I am close to the Airport and prepare for landing, all of a sudden the airspeed of my A10 drops down to 50mph. It does this, even if I go full throttle. At this point the Plane should just drop out of the sky, right? 

Well, it doesn't. I can land as normal but I have to guesstimate the speed, scince the measuring is completely off. Just right before touchdown the airspeed rises up again. 

This is very very confusing. Must be a bug, right? 

DCS models pitot icing in the A-10C in a simplified way.  After a certain amount of time without turning the pitot heat on (I think 30-45 minutes?) your pitot ices over regardless of the outside weather.   You probably don't notice it in the air because your airspeed indicator stays stuck at a constant altitude.  Once you start changing altitudes (like descending to airport), the airspeed indicator decreases with altitude to near zero at sea level, which is probably when you started noticing it.

[BastiScholz]

Awwww…. This might be it, thank you, guys! Will try later this evening

[AJH63]

There's a lot to be said for using a checklist with this aircraft, so you can capture the correct configuration of things i.e Flaps, lights, APU, anti-skid heat and seat on line up as per Lobo's DCS A-10C Normal Checklist & Quick Reference Handbook V8d, of course there are many other useful ones to be found in the User Files download area as well.

[Yo-Yo]

15 hours ago, jaylw314 said:

DCS models pitot icing in the A-10C in a simplified way.  After a certain amount of time without turning the pitot heat on (I think 30-45 minutes?) your pitot ices over regardless of the outside weather.   You probably don't notice it in the air because your airspeed indicator stays stuck at a constant altitude.  Once you start changing altitudes (like descending to airport), the airspeed indicator decreases with altitude to near zero at sea level, which is probably when you started noticing it.

It's not "simplified" way, but quite complicated and close to the real processes in the systems. But you need some efforts to see all these effects.

[jaylw314]

6 hours ago, Yo-Yo said:

It's not "simplified" way, but quite complicated and close to the real processes in the systems. But you need some efforts to see all these effects.

It IS simplified in regards to the matter of when it happens.  Pitot icing only occurs in precip or visible moisture (in clouds).  It does not occur in clear air.  In DCS, it simply occurs after some arbitrary time.  They did get the effect of pitot ice correct in theory, although IRL my understanding is it's common to get unpredictable effects when the pitot gets incompletely blocked with ice.

Edited November 8, 2021 by jaylw314

[jstnj]

3 hours ago, jaylw314 said:

Pitot icing only occurs in precip or visible moisture (in clouds).  It does not occur in clear air.

 

Not true. Depending on prevailing atmospheric conditions during a flight, ice crystals can form in the tube despite not meeting this criteria

[jaylw314]

1 hour ago, jstnj said:

Not true. Depending on prevailing atmospheric conditions during a flight, ice crystals can form in the tube despite not meeting this criteria

Is this a common enough condition that there have been accidents or incidents specifically attributed to this phenomena? 

I did notice I neglected to include haze or fog as possible sources of pitot icing, but the requirement for visible moisture still holds.  It requires liquid drops freezing on impact, unlike carburetor icing (which can and does happen in clear and warm air)

Edited November 8, 2021 by jaylw314