Request: Axis Binding for Radiator Knob

[percydanvers]

Hello all!

I have a spare wheel on my HOTAS I think would be great to bind to control of the radiator knob. As far as I'm able to tell you can't do this at the moment. Right now I have this bound to a button so I'm always holding it down because I want the radiator to stay open in certain situations. 

If at all possible I think it would be great to have an axis binding for this, given that it is wheel shaped control in the real cockpit.

Thank you!

Edited November 27, 2021 by percydanvers

[kablamoman]

Hey didn't want to derail your thread, as I agree more binding options are always better!

But as an aside I would recommend not touching that particular control at all -- you really don't need to.

But yes, an axis bind would be nice!

[LeCuvier]

There is a Radiator Axis command for the TM Warthog throttle, and we could copy that command to the "default.lua" so it could be used for other HOTAS devices. But unfortunately the command doesn't work at all. It's bugged.

[percydanvers]

On 11/27/2021 at 10:50 AM, kablamoman said:

Hey didn't want to derail your thread, as I agree more binding options are always better!

But as an aside I would recommend not touching that particular control at all -- you really don't need to.

But yes, an axis bind would be nice!

Generally I agree, but there are situations where you really need the radiators open, like cooling down the engine in a break in combat. In those situations it'd be nice to have a tactile way of knowing you have the radiators set to open instead of holding down some button hoping you've done it long enough.

[kablamoman]

20 hours ago, percydanvers said:

Generally I agree, but there are situations where you really need the radiators open, like cooling down the engine in a break in combat. In those situations it'd be nice to have a tactile way of knowing you have the radiators set to open instead of holding down some button hoping you've done it long enough.

That’s the thing though, the rad flaps open themselves.

 

The rad control in the Dora is totally automatic. The knob is just a control that sets the thermostat temp, and by default it will actuate the doors to regulate around 100° if I remember right. If you “open” the rad you’re actually just resetting a lower temp for it to maintain so you will just be flying around with more drag than you need (it will try to regulate at like 70° Instead, as an example, and so open the doors needlessly).

 

keep it at the default and the doors actuate themselves. If you start to overheat the doors will already be fully open — you need to increase your airspeed and/or reduce power to cool down your temps.

Edited December 2, 2021 by kablamoman

[percydanvers]

26 minutes ago, kablamoman said:

That’s the thing though, the rad flaps open themselves.

 

The rad control in the Dora is totally automatic. The knob is just a control that sets the thermostat temp, and by default it will actuate the doors to regulate around 100° if I remember right. If you “open” the rad you’re actually just resetting a lower temp for it to maintain so you will just be flying around with more drag than you need (it will try to regulate at like 70° Instead, as an example, and so open the doors needlessly).

 

keep it at the default and the doors actuate themselves. If you start to overheat the doors will already be fully open — you need to increase your airspeed and/or reduce power to cool down your temps.

 

I'm not sure what the default thermostat temperature is set to, but I know that I have a very hard time keeping the engine temps under 100 C without setting the thermostat to 70°. I've found that I can have the advertised 10 minutes of emergency MW-50 power with the radiators in that configuration, while on their default setting I can get about two-three minutes before overheating the engine. 

Idk maybe I'm doing something wrong, but for me a little extra drag is a fair tradeoff against leaving lots of engine power on the table when you need it. 

[kablamoman]

Fair enough — I only ever really fly it on Storm of War (No MW50) — so my experience may be limited by that. I think in principle it should behave the same, though. I have heard about it potentially not auto regulating properly if you touch the control (perhaps some kind of bug), so I am a bit curious: Have you experimented with not touching it at all, from start-up to cruise, and then boosting?

 

I am not at home right now or I’d give it a try myself, but I wonder if you can get the full 10 minutes with no problem if you try that. Also important not to be doing that at low speed (ie. a steep climb) or it will overheat for sure.  

Edited December 2, 2021 by kablamoman

[grafspee]

I use dora start procedure, so i open them fully before engine start, and close them after take off. Oil is cooled by coolant in dora, when you open it it will reduce oil temp as well, which tend to rise while using mw50

Edited December 3, 2021 by grafspee

[percydanvers]

On 12/2/2021 at 4:03 PM, kablamoman said:

Fair enough — I only ever really fly it on Storm of War (No MW50) — so my experience may be limited by that. I think in principle it should behave the same, though. I have heard about it potentially not auto regulating properly if you touch the control (perhaps some kind of bug), so I am a bit curious: Have you experimented with not touching it at all, from start-up to cruise, and then boosting?

 

I am not at home right now or I’d give it a try myself, but I wonder if you can get the full 10 minutes with no problem if you try that. Also important not to be doing that at low speed (ie. a steep climb) or it will overheat for sure.  

 

Unfortunately my experience with that hasn't been so good. A lot of engine failures that way. I could see it being a bug, because if it's set by default to a thermostat temperature of 100C it's definitely not opening when it needs to. 

I'll admit I'm not an expert when it comes to managing the engine of this plane. I've got 150 hours with it and I'm still degrading the engine without understanding what I did wrong. I just had a 40 minute mission where the engine degraded while the temperature was below 100C. It looked like the oil pressure may have dipped below the safety zone, but I'm not sure what would cause that. I had no damage otherwise. 

[grafspee]

From my experience thermostat opens when it needs, when it need to be wide open it will do that, if you overheat this mean that you are flying too slow. Engine failures don't depend on temps, sometimes i set 110C for coolant which is ok by manual and engine is just fine.

@percydanvers no way that oil pressure drop below minimum, unless something serious happen to the engine, when engine is fine oil pressure stays above minimum even at idle rpm on the ground, in flight idle rpm are much higher.

Edited December 6, 2021 by grafspee

[percydanvers]

8 hours ago, grafspee said:

From my experience thermostat opens when it needs, when it need to be wide open it will do that, if you overheat this mean that you are flying too slow. Engine failures don't depend on temps, sometimes i set 110C for coolant which is ok by manual and engine is just fine.

@percydanvers no way that oil pressure drop below minimum, unless something serious happen to the engine, when engine is fine oil pressure stays above minimum even at idle rpm on the ground, in flight idle rpm are much higher.

 

Hmm maybe the oil pressure dropped because the engine had already died by the time I was trying to figure out what was going wrong. As far as I could tell from the dials it was the only thing that was in a danger zone.

I think you may be right that I was flying too slowly. I'll have to check my track file, but I know I this happened after a long mission and I was low on fuel, flying 2700rpm to try to economize my fuel. I think I was in the region 300-400kph IAS at about 1000m ASL. At what speed do things get dangerous for the engine?

Edited December 6, 2021 by percydanvers

[kablamoman]

There is a well-know, but separate bug with the Dora engine where if you run it at ~2700 RPM failures will occur, seemingly at random.

To prevent this, it is suggested you just run it at 3000 RPM for cruise, and if you need economy, pull it all the way back to 2400 RPM. For emergency you can of course still firewall it.

I've not had any issue with random failures this way, and anecdotally I'd also add, try to make smooth adjustments (don't slam the power lever back and forth).

[grafspee]

@kablamoman i was about to introduce this 2700rpm bug, but you were faster  I can only confirm this, 2700rpm power setting lead to engine failure.

[percydanvers]

Ahhh okay thank you both! I thought it was that you could run AT 2700 but not below it. If it's just the good old engine bug I don't feel quite so bad about blowing the engine