20.01.2010, 07:10
The following text is from now on also included in the install package:
Now that we have proper control over our multi-engined planes, how can we make use of it? Since it has not been around before and no one seems to know much about how one can make use of it, here are some examples of what you can do in a twin-engined (as well as four engined in some cases):
1. When on the ground, you can steer the plane with your engines instead of rudder and wheel brakes. More fun than you would think, and not easy.
2. If an engine radiator is damaged, or has a coolant leak, throttle it down compared to the healthy engine to avoiding it over heating and breaking down. Compensate the yawing in that engine's direction with opposite rudder trim.
3. You can help your turns in the air a bit by reducing power on the engine on that side of the turn, allowing this engine to cool a bit and saving a bit of fuel.
4. If your stabilizer control surface (i.e. rudder) is damaged, or even shot off completely along with the stabilizer, you can use the engines to yaw the plane.
5. Similarly, if the ailerons go on one side or both, you can roll the plane with the engines as well. Airplanes stay airborne because the airflow over the wings provide lift. If one wing has less airflow than the other (such as when one power is giving less power than the other), that wing will provide less lift than the other wing. Since lift is a force upwards, and the wings then no longer privide identical push upwards, the wing with less airflow over it will start to drop and the other rise - and you are rolling your plane.
6. Even if you lose ailerons, rudder and elevator control, you can control altitude, roll and yaw by only using your two engines. Your total airspeed then determines if you climb, stay level or descend. Any difference in engine power on either side makes the airplane both yaw and roll towards the lower powered engine, letting you make turns. Actually managing a landing under these circumstances is no doubt very difficult, but making it to your own lines for a ditching or even a bail out should be possible - and satisfying. And to think of the satisfaction of ditching on your airfield, or even managing a landing! It has been done several times in real life in much larger planes. Once by a cargo plane in the US Air Force in Iraq around the year 2005, which was taking off. This plane managed to go around and land again despite having only the engines to steer with. There are other famous accounts of the pilots in passenger/cargo planes doing the same.
7. Getting out of a spin/flatspin/stall:
The plane is skidding wildly in one direction. Normal recovery is stick forward, opposite rudder and throttle down. With a multi engine, it should be possible to let the engine on the inner side of the skid keep going, as it then provides asymmetrical thrust in the opposite direction of the skid, helping the rudder to stop the skidding/rotation. I do not know if this actually works or not, but in theory it sounds proper.
8. At the top of a zoom (sharp climb) where you start to go so slow that the control surfaces barely work, like when performing a 'hammer head' maneuver - or otherwise trying to do sudden sharp skids to the side on top of a zoom below effective airspeed for control surfaces to work - reducing throttle on one engine should make you yaw in that direction, providing more yaw authority than would otherwise be possible. Maybe even more than a pursuing single engined plane might have, despite our plane weighing more and being slower.
Now that we have proper control over our multi-engined planes, how can we make use of it? Since it has not been around before and no one seems to know much about how one can make use of it, here are some examples of what you can do in a twin-engined (as well as four engined in some cases):
1. When on the ground, you can steer the plane with your engines instead of rudder and wheel brakes. More fun than you would think, and not easy.
2. If an engine radiator is damaged, or has a coolant leak, throttle it down compared to the healthy engine to avoiding it over heating and breaking down. Compensate the yawing in that engine's direction with opposite rudder trim.
3. You can help your turns in the air a bit by reducing power on the engine on that side of the turn, allowing this engine to cool a bit and saving a bit of fuel.
4. If your stabilizer control surface (i.e. rudder) is damaged, or even shot off completely along with the stabilizer, you can use the engines to yaw the plane.
5. Similarly, if the ailerons go on one side or both, you can roll the plane with the engines as well. Airplanes stay airborne because the airflow over the wings provide lift. If one wing has less airflow than the other (such as when one power is giving less power than the other), that wing will provide less lift than the other wing. Since lift is a force upwards, and the wings then no longer privide identical push upwards, the wing with less airflow over it will start to drop and the other rise - and you are rolling your plane.
6. Even if you lose ailerons, rudder and elevator control, you can control altitude, roll and yaw by only using your two engines. Your total airspeed then determines if you climb, stay level or descend. Any difference in engine power on either side makes the airplane both yaw and roll towards the lower powered engine, letting you make turns. Actually managing a landing under these circumstances is no doubt very difficult, but making it to your own lines for a ditching or even a bail out should be possible - and satisfying. And to think of the satisfaction of ditching on your airfield, or even managing a landing! It has been done several times in real life in much larger planes. Once by a cargo plane in the US Air Force in Iraq around the year 2005, which was taking off. This plane managed to go around and land again despite having only the engines to steer with. There are other famous accounts of the pilots in passenger/cargo planes doing the same.
7. Getting out of a spin/flatspin/stall:
The plane is skidding wildly in one direction. Normal recovery is stick forward, opposite rudder and throttle down. With a multi engine, it should be possible to let the engine on the inner side of the skid keep going, as it then provides asymmetrical thrust in the opposite direction of the skid, helping the rudder to stop the skidding/rotation. I do not know if this actually works or not, but in theory it sounds proper.
8. At the top of a zoom (sharp climb) where you start to go so slow that the control surfaces barely work, like when performing a 'hammer head' maneuver - or otherwise trying to do sudden sharp skids to the side on top of a zoom below effective airspeed for control surfaces to work - reducing throttle on one engine should make you yaw in that direction, providing more yaw authority than would otherwise be possible. Maybe even more than a pursuing single engined plane might have, despite our plane weighing more and being slower.