You should always think of prop pitch as gears on a car or a bicycle. If you're going up a hill on a bike, you don't want to use a high gear because all the muscles in your legs will tear themselves to pieces and you won't be able to generate any speed. Or, when going downhill, you don't want a low gear because you're legs will be moving waaaay to fast. It's all about normalising the work rate of your engine. Whether it's cruising, climbing, or diving. You want your engine (be it a Merlin, a V8 or yourself) to be doing the same amount of work, in any situation. Basically, all you need to remember is "The closer to 100% prop you are, the lower the gear you are in."
Great video, Dave. Really helpful. "Complex engine management" is a phrase that's caused me no end of fear, when it comes to learning to take care of your plane in the air. Especially in Cliffs of Dover. :P Look forward to seeing more of these, as they're very helpful. And I look forward to more IL-2 campaign vids, too. ;)
You maybe should have used the car gear box analogy for prop pitch. 100% prop pitch is like first gear, you get maximum acceleration, but also high rpm. Adjusting the prop pitch is like shifting to a higher gear, your engine becomes less responsive, but you also get to run at lower rpms, so the plus side is that the engine doesn't explode. You want to have a high gear when you are just cruising down the highway. The reason that the rpms drop is simply that the engine gets a heavier load, and just cant spin as fast because of the resistance. It's like driving a truck uphill: even at full throttle, you rpms will drop if the engine isn't strong enough.
Nice series Dave. :) I've played the IL series since the year dot but am what you might describe as a perennial newbie. Following an unfortunate pattern of playing for a while, then moving on, then re-installing again having of course forgotten anything I might have learned in my last foray. I usually install Zeus Cat's "Straight From The Farm" campaign as my first port of call. In all the years I've been flying this sim I've never found a better tutorial scenario for the beginner. (And I've looked!) But now having subscribed to your channel I can see I'll be making this tutorial series a "must visit" as well. Particularly if you continue to expand on it. I've recently found it was time to scratch the "1946" itch again and the last few times I've found my old disk increasingly difficult to get running properly. Not being very technical makes the whole thing an increasingly complicated dance. So I've hopefully done myself a favour by repurchasing the title from GOG, where it's incredibly cheap for what it is and where I "hope" they'll have used their magic to offer some optimization for modern machines as well as taken some of the grunt work out of the patching rigmarole. So having watched both your excellent existing tutorials, I'm hoping to see the next one soon and wondering if you have any plans? All the best Badger
The reason why the prop, even at less than 100% throttle, your engine is at the redline is because it has a constant speed prop, on increase, the RPM is very high, resulting in a low prop pitch in flight, decrease results in higher speeds, but less RPM. This is not the same on all aircraft (In early spitfires, variable props were used, not constant speed)
![Let's Learn To Play IL-2 [1 of 4] (The Basics, Takeoff, Physics, Landings)](/img/n.gif)
You should always think of prop pitch as gears on a car or a bicycle.
If you're going up a hill on a bike, you don't want to use a high gear because all the muscles in your legs will tear themselves to pieces and you won't be able to generate any speed.
Or, when going downhill, you don't want a low gear because you're legs will be moving waaaay to fast.
It's all about normalising the work rate of your engine. Whether it's cruising, climbing, or diving.
You want your engine (be it a Merlin, a V8 or yourself) to be doing the same amount of work, in any situation.
Basically, all you need to remember is "The closer to 100% prop you are, the lower the gear you are in."
Great video, Dave. Really helpful. "Complex engine management" is a phrase that's caused me no end of fear, when it comes to learning to take care of your plane in the air. Especially in Cliffs of Dover. :P
Look forward to seeing more of these, as they're very helpful. And I look forward to more IL-2 campaign vids, too. ;)
You maybe should have used the car gear box analogy for prop pitch. 100% prop pitch is like first gear, you get maximum acceleration, but also high rpm. Adjusting the prop pitch is like shifting to a higher gear, your engine becomes less responsive, but you also get to run at lower rpms, so the plus side is that the engine doesn't explode. You want to have a high gear when you are just cruising down the highway.
The reason that the rpms drop is simply that the engine gets a heavier load, and just cant spin as fast because of the resistance. It's like driving a truck uphill: even at full throttle, you rpms will drop if the engine isn't strong enough.
Nice series Dave. :) I've played the IL series since the year dot but am what you might describe as a perennial newbie. Following an unfortunate pattern of playing for a while, then moving on, then re-installing again having of course forgotten anything I might have learned in my last foray.
I usually install Zeus Cat's "Straight From The Farm" campaign as my first port of call. In all the years I've been flying this sim I've never found a better tutorial scenario for the beginner. (And I've looked!) But now having subscribed to your channel I can see I'll be making this tutorial series a "must visit" as well. Particularly if you continue to expand on it.
I've recently found it was time to scratch the "1946" itch again and the last few times I've found my old disk increasingly difficult to get running properly. Not being very technical makes the whole thing an increasingly complicated dance. So I've hopefully done myself a favour by repurchasing the title from GOG, where it's incredibly cheap for what it is and where I "hope" they'll have used their magic to offer some optimization for modern machines as well as taken some of the grunt work out of the patching rigmarole.
So having watched both your excellent existing tutorials, I'm hoping to see the next one soon and wondering if you have any plans?
All the best
Badger
The reason why the prop, even at less than 100% throttle, your engine is at the redline is because it has a constant speed prop, on increase, the RPM is very high, resulting in a low prop pitch in flight, decrease results in higher speeds, but less RPM. This is not the same on all aircraft (In early spitfires, variable props were used, not constant speed)
Sorry, take out 'your engine' from that comment