When flying C172 missions in career mode I find that the plane loses power every now and then which ends up stalling the aircraft in altitude hold mode.
This is frustrating as if time compression is being used I have seconds to react before the plane stalls and crashes.
Has anyone else experienced this? Thanks
edit…
The engine is not shutting down completely, just losing power slightly.
Engine RPM drops to around 2500 which is enough to not be able to maintain speed and altitude.
I cannot climb above 10,000 ft in the C172 without stalling.
Most common reason for this is running out of fuel. 172 has two fuel tanks, when you use the engine start sequence it puts the fuel tank to left tank. If you manually taxi then you will start flying with the left tank and run out of fuel early. If you skip the taxi, it will set to both tanks and you will not have an issue. Put the tank to both if you manually taxi.
Thank you but this is not related, I am managing the fuel correctly.
The engine is not shutting down completely, just losing power slightly.
Engine RPM drops to around 2500 which is enough to not be able to maintain speed and altitude.
Cheers
No so long ago I asked for the performance of C172 in this post:
2020 172 or 2024 172? - User Support Hub / Aircraft & Systems - Microsoft Flight Simulator Forums
There you can see a link to a document with the real performance figures of the C172. According to those figures, it’s very difficult to climb to 12,000 ft with this airplane.
In the sim I have also experienced what you say. In career missions I’m selecting no more than 9,000 of cruising altitude, and still it’s difficult to get up there.
thanks … but for skydiving, they put you in a c172 and require 10,000ft
I’ve flow 172 a lot in career mode and haven’t had any issues.
I will suggest a few other items to consider:
Finally, you mention:
This is frustrating as if time compression is being used I have seconds to react
I have to limit my sim rate increase because I find AP goes unstable. Do you see the plane bobbing up and down a lot? It’s possible that the instability could cause a stall.
From what I’ve seen flight dynamics are very stable in the game and not a source of bugs.
You’re right. There’s also some posts out there about that kind of missions. Thet’re almost impossible to perform at 100% with the C172. Many people think that’s a design error: those missions should be performed with another aircraft, or conditions should be less restrictive. I have made few of them because of this.
with time compression i climb on cruise alt switch to FLC setting an alt below and speed below the current airspeed. So it will not descent at all but this keeps you smooth but if ifr you have to cancel it before cause mostly you will gain a little bit alt over time
Thank you again,
I normally lean out the mixture as per normal OPs but I suspect this could be the issue. I will try and just leave mixture full rich, who cares about fuel burn anyway as you don’t seem to have to pay for fuel in Career Mode.
Well… funny enough, too rich of mixture can cause you to lose engine power. MSFS 2020 was actually too aggressive with this model and if you were full rich your engine would stall out above 7,000 ft. Not sure where 2024 is as I got in the habbit of leaning the mixture before climbing too high. So, the best thing for stability would be to lean the mixture correctly and then just make it a bit richer.
Aside from the mixture, which folks are right about, every time I’ve had an issue like this it’s because a control binding reverted and something was competing with my throttle controller axis.
Every time I start the sim, I have to reset several bindings - no setting as default or applying to all aircraft works - it always reverts.
Some folks have noted that in some cases an actual keybind is competing, which is weird because if the key isn’t being pressed, it shouldn’t do anything, but such is the current state of the sim in that regard.
Mixture is key, of course. Just as we are talking, I’m crossing Europe in a long mission with a C172 at 9,200 ft. I was flying well at 95 KIAS but suddenly the engine noise has changed and I’ve begun to lose height.
Low pressure was the cause. I was crossing a low pressure zone, passing from 1005 hPa to 999 hPa very quickly. Less pressure, less density, you need to lean the mixture or you will lose power. I have done so and I’ve been able to stop the prblem. Some miles later pressure has risen again to 1005 hPa and I’ve recovered the mixture.
And it’s raining like hell…
Look the performances of aircraft: Full loaded 8000ft.2nd ajust the enrich lean (the red leveler beside the throttle)
type Cessna 172/performances
on Coggle.
That’s so weird. A drop of 6 hpa is only like ~175’ of pressure altitude. It shouldn’t have much affect on leaning at all, unless you are like right on the edge of starving the engine on the rich side. In your situation, with an outside air temp (OAT) of -08°C, I’d be looking more at induction icing or structural icing than the mixture, but who knows what the sim logic is doing.
I have also wind, 33 kts from 2 o’clock
Not sure if you are leaning the mixture right to the edge or if the mixture model is just too aggressive. But irl, if you’ve leaned the mixture as recommended by POH there should be enough margin to handle a 5 hPA change in pressure.
BTW, since these 172s have EGT temperature, it’s best to use EGT to lean the mixture. Not sure if you do that or not. Adjust the mixture until peak EGT temperature then make it a bit richer. This gives a much more accurate mixture than the traditional lean until you start losing power then make it a bit more rich.
There’s also a lean assist in the G1000 MFD. Get up to cruise, set your RPM per the POH charts, then press LEAN then ASSIST, and slowly reduce the mixture until it peaks. At that point you’ll start to see the peak delta change - you can go lean or rich of peak from there, or stay at peak. depending on what kind of cruise speed and economy you want to get.
Well, that I didn’t know about… I’ll try that out.
