Throttles Idle Stall Engines
-
Hardware issues are possibly a good guess, but depending on the conditions, this might actually be realistic. Aircraft engines are tuned to be just barely sustaining combustion at the idle position, and can sometimes quit if the conditions are right. You're welcome to upload a video for us to check out if you think something is not behaving correctly.
-
@meh1951 No I have not tried that yet. I was hoping the fix was going to be something that did not require third-party software.
@hunterd1968 Do you want to share a video? I was actually just working on my Commander 114 yesterday and changed some parameters that induced a very realistic low rpm engine stall. Are you located at a high altitude airport, by any chance?
-
This happens to me as well, but only when the engines are not warmed up and if I lean the mixture too much during taxi. This is completely a normal behavior, and a properly maintained Baron does the same. After runup make sure that the engines are warmed up and push the mixture full forward and then do your Idle check.
-
@hunterd1968 Do you want to share a video? I was actually just working on my Commander 114 yesterday and changed some parameters that induced a very realistic low rpm engine stall. Are you located at a high altitude airport, by any chance?
@Black-Square i’m actually at KEGE which is about 6500 feet of elevation. The strange thing is when I bring the throttle back to idle the engine drops down to zero. If I use something like a 172 the engine drops back to about 650 when at idle.
-
@Black-Square i’m actually at KEGE which is about 6500 feet of elevation. The strange thing is when I bring the throttle back to idle the engine drops down to zero. If I use something like a 172 the engine drops back to about 650 when at idle.
@hunterd1968 I swear I'm not trying to avoid this, but that's entirely realistic for real aircraft. As for why it doesn't happen in the 172, it's just a matter of different engine configurations. In real aircraft, I only bring the throttle completely back to idle during the run-up, and you definitely run the risk of it stopping depending on the conditions. It's an "I'll ask my mechanic if he can turn that little screw on the manifold again" kind of moment.
-
@hunterd1968 I swear I'm not trying to avoid this, but that's entirely realistic for real aircraft. As for why it doesn't happen in the 172, it's just a matter of different engine configurations. In real aircraft, I only bring the throttle completely back to idle during the run-up, and you definitely run the risk of it stopping depending on the conditions. It's an "I'll ask my mechanic if he can turn that little screw on the manifold again" kind of moment.
@Black-Square I truly appreciate what you are saying. I own and fly a 1979 Cessna 182Q which I keep at the Eagle airport. And as I’m working on my commercial license, we do power off 180s and the engine never quits. I’ve also done numerous engine to idle with an instructor to simulate emergency landings and never quit as well. Also like you said I do run ups before every flight and never had it quit either.
As long as the mixture is “mountain rich” I’ve never had an issue. Obviously, I know nothing about Beechcraft Baron‘s but one of the reasons I purchased the simulator was to start practicing for my multi engine as well as it’s a plane I’m contemplating buying one day.
BTW I have the recently released Carenado 182Q loaded in MSFS 2024 as well and it behaves pretty much exactly like my actual plane. That’s why it seems so confusing that I can’t get the Baron to replicate the same behavior.
When I get home, I’m going to try and see what happens at lower elevation, say Virginia Beach, Virginia as that’s where I’m originally from. I’ll keep you posted on the outcome.. And like I said, I really appreciate all the advice and quick responses from you and others in this forum. You all are awesome!
-
@Black-Square I truly appreciate what you are saying. I own and fly a 1979 Cessna 182Q which I keep at the Eagle airport. And as I’m working on my commercial license, we do power off 180s and the engine never quits. I’ve also done numerous engine to idle with an instructor to simulate emergency landings and never quit as well. Also like you said I do run ups before every flight and never had it quit either.
As long as the mixture is “mountain rich” I’ve never had an issue. Obviously, I know nothing about Beechcraft Baron‘s but one of the reasons I purchased the simulator was to start practicing for my multi engine as well as it’s a plane I’m contemplating buying one day.
BTW I have the recently released Carenado 182Q loaded in MSFS 2024 as well and it behaves pretty much exactly like my actual plane. That’s why it seems so confusing that I can’t get the Baron to replicate the same behavior.
When I get home, I’m going to try and see what happens at lower elevation, say Virginia Beach, Virginia as that’s where I’m originally from. I’ll keep you posted on the outcome.. And like I said, I really appreciate all the advice and quick responses from you and others in this forum. You all are awesome!
@hunterd1968 I always appreciate commentary from fellow aircraft owners too! I might point out that I've never had an engine quite at idle in flight either (that would be truly horrifying), because the propeller is windmilling with the airstream. On the ground, however, in the right atmospheric conditions, engine temperatures, oil viscosities, and tailwinds, it's not unheard of, however.
If you would like to stop this from happening in the simulator, you can probably do so with no ill effects by editing one line in a configuration file. If you located
idle_rpm_friction_scalarin theengines.cfg, a tiny change to something like0.75would probably be enough to do the trick. I should be able to do this for the next update, but I'm sure you understand that I need to explore all the possible tertiary effects before making a change public. I was quite surprised to find recently that this exact parameter could cause the starter simulation in my Commander 114 to become almost impossible to start! -
@hunterd1968 I always appreciate commentary from fellow aircraft owners too! I might point out that I've never had an engine quite at idle in flight either (that would be truly horrifying), because the propeller is windmilling with the airstream. On the ground, however, in the right atmospheric conditions, engine temperatures, oil viscosities, and tailwinds, it's not unheard of, however.
If you would like to stop this from happening in the simulator, you can probably do so with no ill effects by editing one line in a configuration file. If you located
idle_rpm_friction_scalarin theengines.cfg, a tiny change to something like0.75would probably be enough to do the trick. I should be able to do this for the next update, but I'm sure you understand that I need to explore all the possible tertiary effects before making a change public. I was quite surprised to find recently that this exact parameter could cause the starter simulation in my Commander 114 to become almost impossible to start!@Black-Square I will definitely give that a try when I get back home from Thanksgiving. On another note, I tested the plane at sea level and when I throttle back to idle it drops to about 380 but does not stall.
As another test, I went ahead and tried the Baron G58 that ships with the premium pack of MSFS 2024 and at KEGE (6500 ft elevation) when I pulled the throttles back they both hover about 750 RPM. As a test I played with the mixture and it did not seem to affect the results unless I leaned it excessively, and then obviously it died.
These test were obviously done with the exact same honeycomb mapping to keep everything consistent. Hope some of this helps you guys continue to tweak the Baron to make it as absolutely realistic as possible.
I’ll keep you posted as to how your recommended change affects things, but it will be a week or so before I’m back in front of my flight simulator
