R4D - Engine failure in snowy weather

[slimfly 2]

Hi I have an odd problem these days, flying with the wonderful R4D in realtime REX cold weather over ORBX Canada Scenery - although (I think..) I keep an eagle eye to all the meters, crowl flaps, anti ice systems and so on, both engines completely looses power when meeting snow after takeoff!! What am I doing wrong, or miss out?MortenPS. Where can I find a complete flight manual - dealing with cylinder/carburetor heat, proper use of crowl flaps etc. This wasn't included in the downloaded version.

[rambow 0]

Hi I have an odd problem these days, flying with the wonderful R4D in realtime REX cold weather over ORBX Canada Scenery - although (I think..) I keep an eagle eye to all the meters, crowl flaps, anti ice systems and so on, both engines completely looses power when meeting snow after takeoff!! What am I doing wrong, or miss out?MortenPS. Where can I find a complete flight manual - dealing with cylinder/carburetor heat, proper use of crowl flaps etc. This wasn't included in the downloaded version.

I'm not familiar with the REX program, but it sounds like the cause is there, since I've never heard of this happening with the default weather engine in FS. You might want to shoot a query to their support staff. Have you tried adjusting the mixture?You can get the manual as well as instructional videos and other goodies at our Free StuffPages.

[slimfly 2]

Hi BillThe REX weather engine for FSX/FS9 is a fabulous application, extremely realistic in any way, including pressure and humidity - so if you haven't tried this yet it would be about time! :smile:The REX engine, itself, do not interfere with any aircraft model/cfg settings or behavior, so it wouldn't be appropriate to ask the support staff about this issue. The same problem with the engines going into idle with no response from the throttles what so ever, in fact, also occurs under the same extreme icing conditions after landing - then I occasionally experience that I can't move the aircraft away from the runway!Thanks to your valuable free stuff link, I looked into the "Pilot's Flight Operating Instructions - C-47 Airplane" from 1942 - here on page 37 under (8) is a whole lot instructions in details on how to deal with the Carburetor Air Controls in icing conditions, so in the next couple of days I'll experiment with different settings and see what happens...By the way, I have some similar problems with for instance my Spitfire - that is, generally with old propellers and never with modern aircrafts, as it seems. Regards, MortenPS. BTW, As a tribute to your DC3, I made a simulation video a few months ago, which can be found here:Part 1:

Part 2:

Part 3:

[rambow 0]

Hi BillThe REX weather engine for FSX/FS9 is a fabulous application, extremely realistic in any way, including pressure and humidity - so if you haven't tried this yet it would be about time! :smile:The REX engine, itself, do not interfere with any aircraft model/cfg settings or behavior, so it wouldn't be appropriate to ask the support staff about this issue. The same problem with the engines going into idle with no response from the throttles what so ever, in fact, also occurs under the same extreme icing conditions after landing - then I occasionally experience that I can't move the aircraft away from the runway!Thanks to your valuable free stuff link, I looked into the "Pilot's Flight Operating Instructions - C-47 Airplane" from 1942 - here on page 37 under (8) is a whole lot instructions in details on how to deal with the Carburetor Air Controls in icing conditions, so in the next couple of days I'll experiment with different settings and see what happens...By the way, I have some similar problems with for instance my Spitfire - that is, generally with old propellers and never with modern aircrafts, as it seems. Regards, MortenPS. BTW, As a tribute to your DC3, I made a simulation video a few months ago, which can be found here:Part 1:

Part 2:

Part 3:

Hi Morten,I'm not implying that REX is actually interfering with the aircraft, directly, but I suspect it's doing something atmospherically that is causing the problems you are having. The fact that you are having the same issue with the Spifire rather strengthens my suspicion. Is it by any chance the RealAir Spit? That would be interesting as Rob Young created both flight models. Try this experiment: Load up the R4D and level off at 5000 ft with the mixture set to rich. Now slew up to 20K feet and unslew it. Your engines will immediately conk out, but if you quickly pull the mixture down they will catch again. I suspect something similar is happening in the icing situations you are encountering. That's why I mentioned the mixture before. It may not be pressure, either, but something is odd and I still think it's worth a query to the REX folks. They appear to have a very active forum and I'll bet you are not the first person to encounter this issue. I'll be interested in hearing your findings.BTW, I just put one of our Dakotas in Barrow, AK and set the temp to -40F. The engines acted OK, but I was surprised to see a fog forming around the plane! Once I got underway it was clear that it was contrails I was seeing. I always thought that effect was triggered by altitude, but apparently not!Thanks for putting up the R4D videos. Beautiful scenery and nice work.

[slimfly 2]

Yes it is exactly that Spitfire!I'll do your experiment and see what happens...What a strange sight it must have been with that "foggy" Dakota so close to ground - did anyone take some pictures of the event?

[slimfly 2]

Back again after doing the experiment: Engines turned off at 20K and on again when mixture was reset to lean, as expected, so nothing odd there.However, my occasional problem is a little different - my engines doesn't turn off the same way as in the experiment. Instead they turn into idle, regardless of how the throttles and mixture are set, and there is nothing I can do about it - only emergency landing! (with the Spitfire it's a little different - it returns to normal power option if I turn the plane along with the wind direction and wait a minute or so)BUT, actually I had a pretty long flight after this experiment of yours - and I went through plenty amount of heavy snow weather and strong winds - nothing happened. no problems!During this flight I studied the old manual from the 40's and followed all the recommendations in detail for cowl flaps settings (including the final "off" setting procedure! which I actually never completed in the past) and also I adjusted the Carburetor Air Control handles according to the carburetor temperature - I pulled the handles backwards as temperatures decreased to -10 C. (I wonder what the the min. safe temperature actually is here..???)So maybe and just MAYBE, the problem is solved this way - future flights in bad weather will show...However In the RealAir Spitfire version there is no handles to adjust all that kind of engine conditions as mentioned above, so no chance here I guess..!!!Cheers, Morten

[Matt2218 4]

Back again after doing the experiment: Engines turned off at 20K and on again when mixture was reset to lean, as expected, so nothing odd there.However, my occasional problem is a little different - my engines doesn't turn off the same way as in the experiment. Instead they turn into idle, regardless of how the throttles and mixture are set, and there is nothing I can do about it - only emergency landing! (with the Spitfire it's a little different - it returns to normal power option if I turn the plane along with the wind direction and wait a minute or so)BUT, actually I had a pretty long flight after this experiment of yours - and I went through plenty amount of heavy snow weather and strong winds - nothing happened. no problems!During this flight I studied the old manual from the 40's and followed all the recommendations in detail for cowl flaps settings (including the final "off" setting procedure! which I actually never completed in the past) and also I adjusted the Carburetor Air Control handles according to the carburetor temperature - I pulled the handles backwards as temperatures decreased to -10 C. (I wonder what the the min. safe temperature actually is here..???)So maybe and just MAYBE, the problem is solved this way - future flights in bad weather will show...However In the RealAir Spitfire version there is no handles to adjust all that kind of engine conditions as mentioned above, so no chance here I guess..!!!Cheers, Morten

Morten -Loss of engine power is a classic symptom of induction icing...so it makes sense that adding carburetor heat (pulling the handles back) solved the problem. FWIW, carb icing can happen even in warm temperatures if the air is humid due to the temperature drop in the venturi...so if you notice a loss of power carb heat is the first thing to try. Pilots of general aviation type planes (without fuel injection) apply carb heat whenever they are operating at low power settings for fear that ice could be forming and the first they would know about it is lack of power when they trying to 'go around'! Not as much of an issue with the DC-3/C-47 because they approach with a fair amount of power so the pilot shoul notice any icing I think.

[slimfly 2]

Morten -Loss of engine power is a classic symptom of induction icing...so it makes sense that adding carburetor heat (pulling the handles back) solved the problem. FWIW, carb icing can happen even in warm temperatures if the air is humid due to the temperature drop in the venturi...so if you notice a loss of power carb heat is the first thing to try. Pilots of general aviation type planes (without fuel injection) apply carb heat whenever they are operating at low power settings for fear that ice could be forming and the first they would know about it is lack of power when they trying to 'go around'! Not as much of an issue with the DC-3/C-47 because they approach with a fair amount of power so the pilot shoud notice any icing I think.

Okay! Amazing how this DC3 simulation seems to act realistic in any way - very impressing!!Oh, and by the way, here's the answer from REX regarding to Rambows thoughts on the subject: "Hi, I read the item completely. REX cannot be accounted for that behaviour, simply because the weather engine only delivers weather data to fsx and is not creating the actual depiction of the weather layers, fsx takes care of that. What could be happening is that the data delivered by REX is "rich", where the data used by fsx is not. Therefore fsx creates more weather layers, to which the flightmodel is reacting more noticable. Your remark about the complete sequence in the DC3 makes me believe that the weather data is testing the flightmodel to the limits. It could be that some add on airplanes simply cannot deliver in "more real live" conditions."

[Matt2218 4]

Oh, and by the way, here's the answer from REX regarding to Rambows thoughts on the subject:"Hi, I read the item completely. REX cannot be accounted for that behaviour, simply because the weather engine only delivers weather data to fsx and is not creating the actual depiction of the weather layers, fsx takes care of that. What could be happening is that the data delivered by REX is "rich", where the data used by fsx is not. Therefore fsx creates more weather layers, to which the flightmodel is reacting more noticable. Your remark about the complete sequence in the DC3 makes me believe that the weather data is testing the flightmodel to the limits. It could be that some add on airplanes simply cannot deliver in "more real live" conditions."

I don't think this guy "read the item" as completely as he thinks he did. If adding carb heat solved the problem, then the airplane 'delivered' exactly what it should have when confronted with that 'rich' weather data: A frozen carb :(

[rambow 0]

I don't think this guy "read the item" as completely as he thinks he did. If adding carb heat solved the problem, then the airplane 'delivered' exactly what it should have when confronted with that 'rich' weather data: A frozen carb :(

I agree, and thanks Matt for the input and defense - not that Rob Young's flight models don't speak for themselves!

[Matt2218 4]

I agree, and thanks Matt for the input and defense - not that Rob Young's flight models don't speak for themselves!

No problem Bill. In hindsight the REX guys may have been assuming that the engines were quitting with the carb heat ON.Either way, glad we got it sorted out.