Best Mixture Settings: Real-life vs MSFS 2024

ISSUE DESCRIPTION

For piston engines, the real-life “best mixture curve” (percentage of mixture vs altitude) is very different from the one in MSFS 2024.

FREQUENCY OF ISSUE

Permanent feature.

REPRODUCTION STEPS

  1. Having flown for weeks MSFS 2024, and watched the frequent wrong-mixture messages, I now flew quite a few piston aircraft, disconnecting my quadrant, and assigning MSFS 2024 command “SET BEST MIXTURE” to my keyboard letter F. This way, by just flying aircraft at steady different altitudes, I was able to see on the panel the mixture percentage MSFS 2024 deems best for all altitudes

  2. I tested 9 different aircraft. The “MSFS 2024 best” curves I obtained were virtually identical, to ave. differences of about 1%.

  3. Finally, I tested reconnecting my Saitek Quadrant and flying aircraft at all possible altitudes following the best MSFS curves shown below. Engine run smoothly, no mixture-error messages. This verifies that my measurements were correct.

  4. For Comparison I had Gemini AI producing an average real-life curve, compared it to other curves, checked the exponential formula used by Gemini. The “Real-life Aspirated” curve below is therefore an average.

My SETTINGS

  • State of the art desktop PC professionally assembled a year ago.
  • Direct-fibre modem tested at 2.4Gbps.
  • MSFS 2024 Aviator edition, purchased from Microsoft Store, kept updated, with no addons whatsoever. No Developer mode.
  • For the “SET BEST MIXTURE” measurements obviously I disconnected joysticks.
  • For normal flight I use a standard Saitek Quadrant, calibration checked to 1% error.
  • I also use a Thrustmaster Warthog, but this is irrelevant to this matter because none of its axes are connected to engine running in MSFS 2024.

MEDIA

I attach screenshot of the final chart from my spreadsheet. The curves MSFS are averages among different aircraft, with negligible discrepancies. Please note that I am a top-qualified statistician and have decades of experience with flight simulators on personal computers.

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