Is there a patch coming soon?
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Hi @Black-Square ! I'm having a blast flying the turbine duke. I took her from the Caribbean all the way to Alaska and back. Engines still at 100% health.
Today I started using the piston variant but I cant enjoy it because there's something weird going at altitude (24k or above) with the turbo simulation / critical altitude and the engine quitting suddenly without first experiencing any loss of power. It just quits.
So I was wondering if there's a patch coming? I would love to be able to fly the piston variant realistically. Some people recommended me to start leaning before reaching critical altitude and seeing any mp drop, but this kills the realism for me.
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This is from the upcoming v1.1 changelog:
"In addition to correcting turbocharger critical altitude and improving performance beyond it, the severity of the turbocharger’s overly-rich mixture falloff curve was reduced, thanks to new performance options available in the configuration files. As a result, you can expect that engine performance will now degrade slowly as you climb beyond the critical altitude with an overly rich mixture. Combustion should not cease, so long as you maintain full throttle while climbing up to the service ceiling; however, a significant reduction of throttle at those altitudes may still result in a total loss of power."
You can read my more extensive review of this problem here, but here is the relevant section:
7. Turbocharger Simulation - Overly rich mixture power falloff An additional change that comes with some turbocharger improvements is a reduction in the severity of the power falloff at high altitudes when either the mixture levers was set too rich, or turbocharger RPM was not sufficient to boost the manifold pressure to suitable levels to avoid overly rich mixtures. Inadvertent engine shutdown at altitudes above the critical altitude is a real concern in turbocharged aircraft, but there is usually a noticeable degradation of performance that precedes the ceasing of combustion due to loss of boost pressure. Unfortunately, the hard-coded parameters in MSFS's engine simulation did not allow for the adjusting of this harsh falloff until Sim Update 13. The severity of this falloff did not present itself in my previous turbocharged aircraft, since they were all limited to a service ceiling of 25,000ft. Luckily, I was recently made aware of new parameters to adjust this curve, and I have already implemented them. As a result, you can expect that engine performance will now degrade slowly as you climb beyond the critical altitude with an overly rich mixture. Combustion should not cease, so long as you retain full throttle while climbing up to the service ceiling; however, a significant reduction of throttle at those altitudes may still result in a total loss of power. As a rule of thumb, be very cautious about reducing power well above the critical altitude, and make sure you are not operating with an only rich mixture before doing so.
In the meantime (should only be week or so), the Duke owner told me that it's recommended by the POH to take the mixture controls out of the maximum (Bendix auto-mixture) detent and begin leaning for best power at 18,000ft to avoid exactly this kind of scenario. While engine combustion should not cease abruptly while the aircraft is at full power after the critical altitude, performance will degrade as you climb, and faster than it would for a normally aspirated aircraft near sea level, so it is just as important to lean for best power while climbing beyond the critical altitude, so long as cylinder head temperatures allow you to do so.
I hope that answers your question, and you will have many more hours of enjoyable turbocharged operation on your next cross-country adventure! Caribbean to Cape Horn, perhaps?
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That's great! In the last days I only fly the Stock Piston with FSEconomy from Qatar to Europe now (100-300nm legs) and I had the "sudden loss" once, when I first tried a FL240 Cruise. Although I was prepared (thanks to the manual) for a loss of Manifold Pressure somewhere around that altitude, I wasn't prepared for the sudden and rapid "bow out" of the engines. xD
After that flight, I begin to lean somewhat earlier by feeling (RMK: I noted the 18.000ft mark the Duke owner told you, thanks for the sidenote). ;)Works nice, but a slower degradation to react to properly, will be a nicer experience. Thank you in advance!
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@Black-Square Great! That will do for sure! It will be Punta Cana to Dubai. I want to challenge myself to always keep the engines at 100% health.
Hopefully this patch will drop soon? ;)
