My answers were not directed at you. I simply ignored you because i already knew about the bugs you listed. Cools is right about what i wrote and what i meant writing it.
But i‘ll let you continue believing you were right and i was wrong because i simply do not care.
1 Like
For those having issues in keeping the engines running, can you record the full flight so that we could see if you missed something before the issue?
Losing the engines is common: in my VA we were ALL losing it after 45min/1h flight. Until we learned to manage the plane and now we can do long flights without any issue (fyi, we’re bringing a 247D from Australia to USA, and going well so far).
Pressure/Temps issues comes quick, it’s easy to miss it and get the engines down.
5 Likes
Yes, I suspect a lot of what people think are “random” failure are actually being distracted and not realising you had crept out of the safe zone.
1 Like
But the problem is here that with the incorrect oil temp indication it is difficult to spot the temp creeping away. All you can do is stare at the oil pressure gauge and then react accordingly when the oil pressure starts falling.
Not 100% sure a correct reading temp gauge will make a huge difference there, you might end up chasing every minor variation. We will see how it goes when they fix it eventually.
Keeping manifold in the white and oil pressure firmly planted in the middle of the safe zone works fine for me.
1 Like
The oil temp is wrong but it’s just an offset, an offset that can also occur in reality (bad calibration or labeling is a thing), in fact if you aim for the 70 value for the oil temp, all will be fine. Around this value, the pressure will stay stable and safe.
If you see the pressure drifting one way or another, cool or heat the oil to correct the behavior. But watch-out: there is a big inertia in this part, and something might seem stable when in fact it doesn’t and is building up in the system, and will have a sudden breakthrough. This is the tricky part with this plane: we lower our attention at some time, and when we’ll looking back to those gauge again, it’s in a dangerous state that need immediate action.
Also, keep the RPM around 1900, it will help. And reduce the mixture until you see a light decrease in RPM.
4 Likes
Use the rate of change of oil temp rather than values, & just try and keep the pressures under control - oil temp delta will let you know if you can just nudge the cooler lever or you have to be a bit more robust ( and probably anticipate closing them a bit later ).
Hello fellow flight simmers
Today I went back to this wonderful aircraft, thought I’d give it another go after some time off.
I decided to find some warm weather for my new attempt to fly it so I chose to fly from Mallorca to Ibiza, which is about 100nm distance.
OAT: 80F
Oil used: SAE30
Seeing as I did not recall what state I had left the aircraft many months ago and having issues with the state saving on previous attmepts I decided to cycle all the switches on and off again before starting.
Following this I followed the usual starting procedure:
Fuel selector: Both
Fuel tank: Left
Magnetos: on and both
Mixtures: Fully Rich
Props: Full forward
Throttle: About 30%
Battery: ON
Primer: 3 pumps
Wobbling for fuel pressure and using the flywheel.
Both engines started on the first attempt! Which certainly was a first for me. Granted I have never tried to fly it in such warm temperatures previously so I am sure that did help a lot. 
The flight itself was rather uneventful, I kept a close eye on the guages and made sure to keep the oil pressure between 60 and 70, the temperature was showing around 80F for the entire flight.
Engines were kept at 27" and 1900RPM and the altitude was 4000 feet.
When I arrived at Ibiza, everything went fine, pressures and temperatures stayed the same, but I had some problems with the instruments on final approach. Suddenly everything froze, except the sim kept going, I couldn’t move the throttles or anything but I could move the control surfaces.
Then suddenly everything came back at once and I managed to make a decent landing (that’s another first)
Kept the engines running and taxied to parking. Parked it up, shut it down and let the passengers disembark.
Then when I checked the payload I noticed that I was almost out of oil (and yes I had topped it off before take off) which puzzled me a little. That seems to indicate to me that I had been running the oil too hot and therefore consumed oil at an increased rate? Can some of you elaborate on what I should have done differently?
Also, I couldn’t find a proper shut down procedure so I just went with having the engines running at about 1000RPM and cutting the mixture one at a time until the engines died down, before switching off the magnetos, fuel, lights, battery etc. Is this the correct procedure?
I would love to fly this aircraft a bit longer than 100nm, but I don’t want to run out of oil! I have yet to have an engine fail on me on the 5 or so flights I have made in total.
If the engines are not starting on first try in colder weather you probably need to wait longer before hitting engage. To be safe, I wait till the percentage on the ground crew window hits 30% which is a good half minute or more past the point the engage button first turns green.
.
1 Like
Yes that is what I did this time after reading about it in this thread. Waiting for 30% seemed to be the trick. I will have to try that in colder temperatures in the future
I honestly can’t believe this aircraft sometimes…
So on my previous flight I managed to start both engines on the first attempt.
So I loaded up the aircraft again in identical conditions and did exactly the same approach… and no dice.
Had to give up after 20-30 attempts to ignite either engine.
It’s hard to know when there is no indication of what you are actually doing wrong or what is actually happening and all you can do is guess. But then it worked perfectly last time…
The status of the engine is saved from session to session and the condition of the engines will
deteriorate over time if they are not operated within their limits. The notable exception to this is if
the condition of your engine is extremely poor, in which case Jack and his team will have the engine
replaced by the time you have loaded your next flight.
So there is no way for us to know the state of our engines nor force an engine fix or change afaik. Could it be that the engines are in such bad shape that they will not even start? There are so many mysteries with this aircraft…
I’ve given up trying to figure out the idiosyncratic behavior of this aircraft. One flight is just fine; the next - in similar conditions - isn’t good at all. My early curiosity has turned to frustration.
There are too many other great models from which to choose in MSFS that are far more satisfying. I really want to like this model, but there is something fundamentally wrong. And frankly, it feels like abandonware to me. Too bad… so much to like and so much potential.
11 Likes
Has anyone else noticed that when you increase time compression / sim rate, engine cooling behavior changes? I can have everything set for cruise, oil temps and pressures steady and normal, and I soon as I up the time compression, overheating starts. Go back to normal time, and everything cools back down.
I really hope Wing42 surprises us with a patch to address this and other outstanding issues. I still think it’s a work of art at a wonderful price point, but I can’t really recommend it to my friends until some of these teething problems that have been with us since release are addressed.
Does this also mean that framerate impacts aircraft systems and performance?
That would sure explain a lot - if their customized system simulation has hard-coded values pegged to a set framerate (or an assumed average), a lot of the wonky, inconsistent engine cooling system behavior people have been complaining about starts to make more sense.
Other than look at the temps and pressures in cockpit not really. But as your quote says, if the engines are inoperable they will replace it.
One thing I have noticed is that with a dead cold new engine (rather than a state saved existing one) starts in cold weather can be tricky unless you increase the OAT (equivalent to preheating the oil in real life).
It would be a nice quality of life update to be able to check the conditions of the engines via maintenance, if they are close to becoming inoperable it would be nice to know before I take off. How badly did I damage them on the last flight etc. We do have a mechanic after all 
This thread is long and unwieldy. Can we sum up the known problems again?
-
Right engine starter sound is missing.
-
State saving doesn’t work. You may need to switch a number of controls to insure they are set where they appear to be set.
-
The oil temp gauge possibly has display errors. There is a mod designed to correct this at B247D Oil Temperature Indicator FIX » Microsoft Flight Simulator
-
The engine heating model does not perform as expected when using time compression, leading to rapid overheat and engine death.
-
Your assistant occasionally bugs out while meshing the clutch to start an engine, adding hundreds of tasks (not sure if anyone else has seen this, I’ve seen it twice).
-
There may be issues with CHT reading too low
-
There may sounds issues when using “Headphone” setings.
-
There are reports of fuel consumption being 50% too low
-
Engine oil consumption is reported to be far too high. This may be due to people accidentally or unknowingly running their oil way too hot, but there are also reports of oil burning at far too low of a temp. If you have a mystery engine failure, check oil levels on respawn.
-
Engine generators are off by default, limiting electrical life to a few hours. The only way to enable them is by key bind.
There may also be engine start bugs, but it’s hard for anyone to say conclusively.
Finally, while not a bug, I’d note that after you crash, your plane with start with empty fuel. This probably confuses a lot of people, given that the expectation in MSFS is starting with half tanks.
On the negative side, there has been almost no communication from the dev since shortly after release. This is quite a contrast to how it was just before release. I don’t feel safe saying that we can count on these bugs being addressed.
On the positive side, the plane is still a tremendous value at $20 USD. Flying with engine failure modeling disable will still give you a great experience.
The above list was compiled from my own experiences, but mostly from browsing this thread. I’m sure I’ve missed a number of things, and misstated others. Please feel free to correct me.
10 Likes
I’m am absolutely convinced something bad has happened. I hope I am wrong.
1 Like
It is also worth noting that if you blow up an engine it is replaced with a new one, but is “cold” and hard to start. A good trick with a brand new engine is make the first start somewhere with high OAT to simulate warming the oil.
Despite all the little issues it is a great plane and I still fly it a lot.
2 Likes