There is a switch left of the yoke.
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Hi, everyone, new member here. I remember flying MSFS back in, oh, around the early 90âs, I forget which version. Anyway, there was a fellow who made beautiful aircraft and airports centered around what I would call the Golden Age of Aviation, around the 40âs to 60âs. Thatâs really all I can remember, does this ring a bell with anyone? Mike
I just took a 35 minute flight around Oahu in this bird and had no major issues. Pretty plane.
The one thing I canât seem to figure out is why fuel pressure stays so low unless you have the engines almost firewalled, even with the fuel pumps turned on. Anyone else experiencing this?
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Guys, swede001 has made a good point about there should be a super charger and this could well be why you are all struggling to get the performance/altitude you are expecting.
Im not an expert at these old planes but I have a feeling the spitfire uses the supercharger when at high altitude.
I dont have access to the sim at the moment but i remember seeing one in the stratoliner at the top of the panel behind the copilot seat. Have a look there and switch it on when you are stalling and see if it helps.
Beautiful plane, really nice photo! Mike
Sometimes you also have to turn on the fuel pumps at high altitude too and also reduce the mixture levers (i think, like i say im no expert at this but just things ive picked up from others!)
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There is a supercharger, else how do you get 43" Hg manifold pressure for takeoff? It peaks at 3500 ft. Rated power is 38.5" Hg/2300 rpm and peaks at 5000 ft. This is the PanAm version, not the TWA. The documentation will need to be corrected.
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There is a three-way momentary switch on the overhead panel for the flaps.
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This was 100% a conflict with a 3rd party aircraft I am beta testing.
Apologies for any confusion created over this.
Yes, I experienced the same thing with fuel pressure. I took it up for a 2 hour flight, and only had 2 real concerns. One was the fuel pressure, and the other was the lack of a supercharger which prevented me from gaining the altitude I wanted. Maybe there is a supercharger, but I couldnât find it and a search of the manual doesnât mention one either.
The engine supercharger is not something that can be controlled by the pilot, since it is only 1 speed. Not to be confused with the cabin superchargers, which are for pressurization.
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Iâm not an expert on this subject but I did recently read a book on the general evolution of radial engines and the airliners that used them, Americaâs Round-Engined Airliners. Great quick read with lots of cool diagrams and period photos.
Anyway, from reading this, itâs my understanding that from about the early 1930s and on, if not slightly before, EVERY radial above light GA size had a supercharger as an integral, essential part of the intake system. These were basically a single stage centrifugal compressor between the carb and the cylinders. Not only did it increase intake pressure, which gave greater take-off power and also compensated for atmospheric pressure loss with altitude up to a point, but it also slung the fuel-air mix from the centerline of the engine out to the intake valves at the tips of the cylinders as evenly distributed as possible. As this supercharger was always âonâ, being geared to the crankshaft and the engine being unable to run even on the ground without it because it was an essential part of the fuel system, there were no controls for it.
But this integral type of supercharger, regardless of engine, was only good up to about 16.000â. Just after takeoff, youâd set climb power in terms of MP and RPM. This MP would be rather less than firewall, thanks to the supercharger. But as you climbed and the air got thinner, the MP would fall off so periodically you had to nudge the throttles forward until, at about 16,000â, youâd hit the firewall. If you kept climbing above that, MP and thus AIS and ROC would both decrease as the integral supercharger had reached the limit of overpressure it could provide. So you then had the choice of stopping the climb about there either permanently or temporarily. âTemporarilyâ meant you were then in âstep climbâ mode. Youâd stay at about 16Kâ until you burned enough fuel that the plane could climb at a respectable rate again even though with less power than it had lower down. And you might end up doing several steps like this if you desired to reach your ceiling.
Thus, I suggest that those who are struggling with power above about 16Kâ are trying to make the climb all in 1 go from the ground up to cruise at 20K+â or so like they would in a jet. Thatâs simply not how these old planes behaved. They were too heavy to do this so had to wait to get lighter at intermediate stops on the way up.
To overcome this issue, engine-makers started adding a 2nd stage to the supercharger, or a higher gear ratio for the integral supercharger, the âhigh blowerâ. This often did have manual controls. Youâd engage the 2nd stage once youâd hit the firewall with the integral stage. PMDGâs DC-6 tutorial video on this subject shows such a system in operation. https://youtu.be/9CQ9fDbKMas
But apparently this plane (I ainât got it yet, just reading up on it here before making a decision) lacks the 2nd stage because it was somewhat older than the DC-6. Hence, no controls for the supercharger, and the necessity of step climbs.
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And yetâŠ50 seconds into this video, they say the cruise altitude of 20k feet is made possible by a new device, âthe supercharger, which the captain now turns on to warm up while the great ship gains altitudeâ. It appears to be left of the captainâs chair in the video, but it definitely isnât in the sim. The question is, why canât this plane reach itâs supposed cruising altitude if the supercharger isnât modeled?
it is 10âŹ,but the planes from AH wat are at normal Price,i will stay awayâŠ
and also next 10⏠planes i will miss if they do not betterâŠ
because sound and other,i give the last 2 releases only 2 stars.(will change if they fix)
i hope that Mods fix the Planes.
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My expectations always are high and I cannot resist to get the Local Legends and Famous Flyers. And sometimes they are really good, sometimes they still have great potential.
Yes, letâs hope that we get updates.
Because, as has been said several times in this thread already, this video is of the TWA later model with 2-stage superchargers, and the version in MSFS is the earlier Pan Am version with the single-stage superchargers.
There is a bit of miscommunication here due to semantics. Because ALL radial engines of the size to power propliners already had a supercharger built-in for years but, because they were integral to the basic engine design, nobody outside engine geeks even knew they were there. Thus, the 2nd stage of supercharging was greeted by the general public, or least in ads made for the general public, as a new thing. And it was a new thing, but it was an addition to an old thing which nobody, apart from engine geeks, knew about. Thus, it was hyped to the public as just a âsuperchargerâ, not a â2nd stage to the already existing supercharger you never had heard of beforeâ.
Look at it like this⊠If, when on the ground at or near sea level, you can get rather more than 29.92" MP at full throttle, then youâve got something in there boosting intake pressure. A supercharger, a turbo, maybe both at once, etc. The presence of the integral â1st stageâ supercharger is thus self-evident.
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Where did MSFS say so?
It says so in the Marketplace description:S307 - Wright Cyclone GR-1820-G102A , single-stage superchargers. Do read it.
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I did. No need for this kind of reaction.
I am just trying to trace down whether the MSFS/AH were clear about the performance of the Stratoliner released for MSFS. On the product description they also state that the ceiling is 23 800 ft with cruise speed of 222 mph which is clearly not the case with the product.
So it seems they speak about the Pan Am âless performingâ engines but give âTWA-likeâ performance.
A bit confusing to say the leastâŠ