Civil Air Patrol Search

[Guest PaulDPearl]

my question/problem is... I'm flying the "Civil Air Patrol" mission and for some reason I can't get past the moutains... my airplane is losing power somehow.... anyhelp would be superfly!

[AWACS 12]

You need to use pitot heat and alternate air as your airplane's air intake is getting blocked by ice.Jeff

[Guest Captain Dad]

That's it exactly!Turn on Pitot Heat all the time whenever you fly. Like fastening your seatbelt when you drive.Turn ON Carburator Heat and OFF again every 5-10 mins. in know icing conditions. Watch your Manifold Pressure. If it starts to drop, you are icing up.:-spacecraft

[Bell417 0]

That is not a glitch, it happens to the engine when you climb above a certain altitude. If you click on the silver T-handle that says something like "Engine Alternate Air", that should give your engine the needed power. I think that is the way to fix the problem but if it doesn't work, turn on the fuel boost pump (it is one of the black switches on the lighting panel) and leave both of them on until you land after the mission. If you still don't understand make another post saying so and I will try to explain better.

[Guest IanP]

What about leaning the mixture? Above about 5,000', your engine only actually wants about 50% mixture to run optimally. I found myself running most of the CAP and Denali missions with the mixture lever pulled quite a way out.There are lots of tutorials around for how to lean for best efficiency, but unless you have auto-mixture ticked, that's the most likely culprit for loss of power at altitude.Hope that helps. :-)Ian P.

[Guest Funky D]

I noticed a bug... not sure if it's the Maule, the mission, or just my computer. When I clicked the alternate air handle in the 2D panel, my RPM's continued to decrease. Pressing the "H" button (for carb heat) would restore power to the engine, but there is no carb heat switch in the Maule. I went back to the 2D panel. Pressing "H" opened and closed the alternate air handle in the 2D panel, but not in the virtual cockpit.So, it seems that clicking on the alternate air handle in the 2D panel only animates the handle in the VC, it doesn't actually open the alternate air valve!

[Guest JackDanielsDrinker]

>What about leaning the mixture? Above about 5,000', your>engine only actually wants about 50% mixture to run optimally.>I found myself running most of the CAP and Denali missions>with the mixture lever pulled quite a way out.>>There are lots of tutorials around for how to lean for best>efficiency, but unless you have auto-mixture ticked, that's>the most likely culprit for loss of power at altitude.>>Hope that helps. :-)>>Ian P.Yeah, I flew the Beach 58 over the English Channel...I was trying to reach its ceiling but only got to about 18,000 feet. At that altitude the mixture was so lean that if you brushed up against the handle, you'd either flood the engines or shut them off. I did this once and my wife (next to me) almost jumped out of her seat (there was a storm brewing, too).