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arkady86
Mar-20-2014, 09:26
Hello everyone, noob Spit pilot reporting in for the first time, first of all a huge thank you to the TF and ATAG teams, you guys resurrected ClOD from its ashes and turned it into a work of art, congratulations and a heartfelt thank you for your immense talent!
I'd like to report a strange phenomenon I'm witnessing, I tested it on the Spits only so i don't know if it applies to other planes as well...

Basically, when I land (top-notch ground physics there, hats off to you guys!) everything goes fine until I'm down to a crawling pace.
At that point, holding the brakes down with the throttle closed won't stop the a/c from creeping forward (no such issue in 4.0 on my rig), and something even stranger happens after I somehow manage to stop by either yanking the rudder around and playing with the tailwheel or resorting to any sort of black magic I can come up with: when I pull the cut-out to shut the merlin down, the engine quits as it should but the prop won't stop spinning, albeit very slowly, and on the external views I can hear a cranking noise, which should be expected as it's still turning.
Closing the fuel cock and turning the mags off won't help, the prop keeps spinning slowly and nothing can stop it.
I then tried to restart the engine (correct procedure followed as per real-life checklist) and nothing happened, the starter was gone with the wind, but the damn prop kept spinning; needless to say, none of the above happened in 4.0, where you could stop the aircraft correctly, shut down the beast and restart it without any problems.

Apart form that, 4.3 seems to be working like a charm and is probably THE most challenging AND rewarding WWII experience I ever had, so thank you all for that! Man, I'm loving those De Wilde rounds ;)

Thanks for your time and patience with this newcomer,
See you in the sky!

Arkady from Italy

Artist
Mar-20-2014, 09:55
Hi arkady,

thank you for reporting this bug! To faciliate and organize bug reports, we have established a bugtracker here at http://tfbt.nuvturais.de. May I kindly ask you to check if this bug has already been reported there and if not, to create a new issue with this bug? And, if you haven't done so already, please do read the guidelines here first: http://tfbt.nuvturais.de/projects/il2clodtf/boards/4.

Thank you very much,
Artist

arkady86
Mar-20-2014, 10:39
Thank you Artist, I just reported both issues in the tracker.

Roblex
Mar-23-2014, 13:15
OK the bug tracker entry for your bug then directs you to come back here and discuss it so...:-)

I have had a lot of trouble recently with my aircraft refusing to stop rolling even with the throttle shut but to be honest I thought it had been happening for at least a few weeks ie before the latest patch. I could be mistaken but I am 95% sure the 'rolling' problem predates the patch.

It sounds look we are seeing the same bug but I can add a few more things to pin it down.

1. I had the same problem with being unable to re-start the engine but I had stopped it by shutting off the fuel. I assumed the prop was only turning because I was on a map with wind. I did check the fuel was back on and both magnetos were on and throttle closed.
2. I get the 'wont stop rolling' issue when taxiing before take-off so it is nothing to do with landing. Even holding the brakes on wont stop it rolling (which is why I shut off the fuel to stop the engine)

bolox
Mar-23-2014, 17:55
I've been looking at these 2 issues, and so far have been unable to replicate them.
Most of the questions I've posted on bug forum still apply


Can you confirm that the brake needles are going to full on position (almost vertically up)when brakes are applied. - Gauge is on lower left of panel, left and down of trim gauge.
Also what realism settings are you using?

Is this specific to one particular mission?

One other thing that might be confusing the issue is on a cold start, Spit and Hurri have an empty air tank which supplies the brake pressure. This takes a few seconds to build up when the engine starts, thus the brakes are very ineffective until full pressure is reached.

How are you applying brake? keyboard? axis? joystick button? any programming software used?
I could ask tons of similar questions trying to find that 1 thing that finds the solution

Ideally someone with this issue would provide a SP mission where either/both of these problems happens every time, or failing that a track of it happening. With this sort of evidence we can try to track down where the problem lays.
Failing that more information as to when it occurs to enable us to track it down.

arkady86
Mar-23-2014, 21:54
Brake needles are indeed goin up, info message says brakes on 100% (activated via b key), tried in single player quick missions and multiplayer as well, same results.
Starter won't budge after I shut the engine down. As I said, this happened only with Spit mkIIa, the hurricanes seem to be working just fine, will test with other spit variants as soon as possible. As for replicating, just fly one of the free flight quick missions with a Spit IIa, that's where I first noticed this behaviour. Realism settings are custom (i.e. anthropomorphic control deactivated and a couple more tweaks), with CEM enabled and all physics options activated for realism, but hte very same things happened in multiplayer, and the server had its own settings applied (Dangerdogz server IIRC)...
By the way, I always tested this AFTER landing, so the cold start situation mentioned by bolox doesn't apply (I think)... Any suggestions?

1lokos
Mar-23-2014, 23:44
I test with QM Cross Country with Spit IIa.

After landing brakes work OK effectively stopping the plane - using B or Y axis+P, full pressure applied.
At mission start the pressure is only ~half, like Bolox say.

Using "use engine cut out", the engine stop - at least the sound - but no HUD "Engine stop" message and the propeller dont stop, continue at 1400 RPM.
Turn the engine with magnetos and/or fuel cock dont help. Play with prop pitch also not.

After the engine dont re-start.

Engage Autopilot, AI take some seconds to effective shut the engine - message on "HUD" - nothing visible happen...

After, turn off Autopilot the engine start normally (by player).

Even at start of mission (spawn engine ON) if turn off the engine, shut magnetos/fuel cock, the propeller dont stop spin and engine dont re-start.

Sokol1

Torric270
Mar-23-2014, 23:53
If the plane won't stop moving, put the chocks in.

After shutting down the engine, move the prop pitch to course, pretty quickly you get the engine stopping message and then you can then restart.

Tested on a 6 m/s wind.

RAF74_Buzzsaw
Mar-24-2014, 00:10
The Spitfire IIA has a Coffman starter, so it shouldn't be able to re-start without a new cartridge.

The Merlin III engined variants needed a battery system to start.

Theoretically all these aircraft couldn't start twice... one would need a new cartridge, the others would need a crew with a battery cart to arrive.

1lokos
Mar-24-2014, 00:29
Torric,

You are right, move the prop pitch to course stop the engine (HUD message) ~35 seconds after no more engine sound.
If you dont move prop pitch the engine stop after ~1:10 minutes (HUD message) - times in Dr.Who'leg world with cockpit clock - under 11 m/s wind (no need turn off fuel cock/magnetos).

Chocks dont matter.

BTW - When I are testing, the ground crew give me a special Coffman cartridge to re-start the engine, see at ~ 2:05 :)


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wuJSrgHMa_c&feature=youtu.be

It's Clod! ;)

Sokol1

arkady86
Mar-24-2014, 04:34
All right, but then why would the hurricane (same engine, same prop) stop properly every single time I apply the brakes, not to mention flawless shutdowns and restarts?
By the way, Coffman starters had more than one cartridge (3 maximum), they could be changed (i.e. selected by rotating their drum) via the second ring-pin you see on the right side of the spit's dash (it looks exactly like the slow running cut-out pin, slightly above and right of it...).

Oh ,should you guys be interested, the G.50 refused to shutdown with mixture closed and mags off, had to put the fuel selector to off to kill the engine... but at least its brakes seem to work XD

bolox
Mar-24-2014, 10:07
Ok, have managed to replicate the cutout/restart issue in 4.3 with Spit IIa only- other marks of Spitfire do not appear to have this problem.
This is with cross country mission as suggested by Sokol


It seems to be possible to get a restart tho- if you can get prop to slow down enough, going to coarse pitch seems to add just enough drag to do this- still takes 40-60 secs to slow down enough. It still is crawling round but a restart will happen.
Method of shutting down engine does not seem relevant.

So can confirm the prop doesn't slow down the same as other Merlin engined planes, and that it is this that is stopping the ability to restart the engine.

Brakes I can not replicate.

G50 is a known problem

1lokos
Mar-24-2014, 10:59
Oh ,should you guys be interested, the G.50 refused to shutdown with mixture closed and mags off, had to put the fuel selector to off to kill the engine... but at least its brakes seem to work XD

G.50 engine are turned off only switching off magnetos - but there a bug (from "vanila" game), the last position of rotary magneto switch is not registered, so you need use the keys assigned for rotary switch magneto selector, not for toggle switch magnetos (different planes, different comands). :D

G.50 fuel cock - lever on left side of cockpit - are highlight with mouse over but are not clickable and dont respond to keys (at least here)... It's a "temperamental" plane. :)

Sokol1

Artist
Mar-24-2014, 12:52
Can we then change the title of

Bug #502 (Confirmed): Spitfire: engine shutdown and restart

to

Bug #502 (Confirmed): Spitfire IIa: engine shutdown and restart

Cheers,
Artist

arkady86
Mar-24-2014, 18:55
I'm trying to change the title right now Artist, but I don't see any Edit buttons in the bugtracker... Am I supposed to do that or it's an admins-only thing?

Artist
Mar-25-2014, 03:01
Hi arkady,

sorry, it is in fact an admin-only thing - just post an update and I'll do it.

But my post was rather a question: Does this bug affect only Spitfire Mk IIa? Because then we should change the title.

Cheers,
Artist