Yo folks

 

The other day it happened to me something out of the ordinary in Flight, AND with the C-46 : an engine failure !!

 

I'm not very sure on how it happened, or what happened, but I was flying with friends, I popped up among them and here is what I saw :

 

 

 

 

My left engine was dead.

 

Nothing more to say

And I thought that you found a way to run the C-46 on one engine. Oh well...

 

Did it just fail out of a sudden?

I had something along the same lines with a long tongue of flame suddenly erupting from one engine. Remnants of some planned feature? Maybe a never implemented mission?

Well, it would be great if it was the critical engine (left, the one you show failled is the port ebgine).

 

Anyway, was there any noticeable yaw towards the dead engine? Were you able to control the airplane?

In my case I didn't notice. I was too busy gaping, and going "What the.....!!"

I have been flying the C-46 on some long hauls and will have to watch for this. I used to do this a lot with P-38s in FS9, some fun. Nice that you got the shot.

Anyway, was there any noticeable yaw towards the dead engine?

 

Jcomm raises the key question. I remember, a few months back, when you'd see folks flying P-51's and F4U's with gear down and stopped props. This wasn't apparent to the flier if he or she was in cockpit view. And I had a few people ask me, when I was flying the F4U, why my engine was shut down.

 

In other words, I'm wondering if the engine was stopped or whether it just rendered that way.

I encountered a bug the other day where the animation was completely reversed...

 

When the engine was running, the prop was stationary, when I turned engine off with 'B', the prop spun but there was no power.

 

Only happened that once, after landing

Great screenshot, no matter what the cause! :lol:

 

Best regards.

Luis

Well, it would be great if it was the critical engine (left, the one you show failled is the port ebgine).

 

Anyway, was there any noticeable yaw towards the dead engine? Were you able to control the airplane?

 

Why is one engine more critical than the other?

 

The day I downloaded the C-46 I had the same experience, but with the opposite engine to DreadMetis. No obvious yaw, loss of speed or altitude, but I had not yet surrendered to using the HUD so it would have been hard to gauge. I did notice a change in sound, that's what drew my attention to it. It seemed to happen in response to me hitting some keys, although it may have been a coincidence. Stupidly, I did not investigate further and exited Free Flight after a minute or so, without so much as a screen shot :blush:

Why is one engine more critical than the other?

 

On a twin, with props rotating clockwise, as seen from the pilot position, which is the case with the C-46, various forces contribute to a left-wise yaw / bank tendency - spiraling slipstream hitting the tail surface from the left, torque of the engines or propwash airmass drag making the aircraft want to bank left since the props rotate right, p-factor = assymetric prop disc lift - mainly during takeoff and slow speed steep climbs, gyroscopic effects. All of these forces sum up to make the aircraft "want" to yaw / bank left, and that's why some have trims for aileron and rudder, either fixed or controllable, engine cants, etc...

 

Problem is that on such an aircraft if the LEFT engine fails, the drag from the windmilling prop will add to the other effects, and the yaw / roll to the left tendency will grow bigger, so big that bellow a certain speed you will run out of rudder to counter it's effects.

 

Should the right engine fail, while still a problematic situation, the drag from it's prop would counter the so called "prop effects" and even "help" finding an equilibrium...

 

Simplistic explanation, I know, but I hope it makes sense :-)

I see.... mine was the port engine, I suspect it was just a visual glitch as has been suggested.

Guys - If you look closely ( or not), that is the starboard (right) engine that is dead. That is unless you have been taught the engines are labeled when viewing the aircraft from the nose back. I was taught that engines are labeled port or starboard based on your position in the pilot or co-pilot's seat.

Yes, in the photograh, as I pointed out previously, it's the starboard engine that looks failed... thus, not the critical one :-)

I noticed a couple of time when starting the engines the port would start before the starboard.