Engine Ice/Failures Modeled?

[Guest BeaverDriver]

Just wondering if engine failures are modeled in the Lear 35? I ask because on a flight in Alaska this morning, I had a left engine failure with an attendant "ENG ICE" Warning light. I had lots of go-juice in both wings and I couldn't find any other reason for a failure. I did not have the Nacelle Heat on at the time and had just passed through a fairly deep cloud deck (temps were a bit below freezing at the time). That's great if this is modeled, as long as I know about it and can take precautions in the future.

 

By the by, the flight finished successfully. I did a single engine approach into Homer with a pretty routine landing. The airplane handles very believably with one engine out.

[RobdeVries 28]

Great to hear!

[Guest BeaverDriver]

Well, hang on :smile: . I am not saying it IS modeled. I'm asking Flysimware if it is because if it's not, then I have another problem of some kind that I'm going to have to start investigating. If it is, I agree - that's great, but it would have been good to know ahead of time :wink: .

[CW46 101]

I asked about getting the windshield heat annunciator to function which it does not, I would be surprised if anti ice was modeled as none of the switches appear to do anything other than "click" and not give any indication of function. For nacelle heat it would be a ITT rise, momentary illumination of the annunciator and a slight pressure bump on the cabin rate of climb when you actuate the switch.A steady illumination would mean insufficient bleed air pressure to the nacelle or a the valve failed to open .Now if it did all of that I would be impressed and say it was correctly modeled.

[Guest BeaverDriver]

Thanks Gary. It's not so much the nacelle heat that I was wondering about as whether or not the engines can fail as a result of ice being ingested (or for any other reason). As I say, I had a sudden and total failure of the left engine for no explainable reason. The only indication I got was the ENG ICE caution light immediately after the failure, but I could only see part of the panel. It might be I got all the lights associated with that engine coming on as a result of the failure.

 

Unfortunately then, the question remains - why the failure in the left engine?? If it's not modeled, something is going on which isn't good. I still had 2000 lbs of fuel split evenly between the left and the right sides, with nothing in the centre tank, so it wasn't fuel (both jet pumps were on). Unfortunately I was on an instrument approach at the time and hand flying it, so I didn't have a lot of time to try and find the fault (there was no fire warning so I wasn't getting too excited over it), so I just flew it in. We'll see if it happens again at some point. Sure made for an interesting flight though!

[CW46 101]

I don't think the annunciator would be related to your unexplained engine shutdown, as modeled both the engine A/I and bleed air lights illuminate when the engines are off anyway.l notice this before starting engines and after shutdown, in the real aircraft those lights would illuminate in specific abnormal conditions when the engines are running.Below 25000 feet the engine should continue to run even with a jet pump switched off so it is anyone's guess as to why.Time to query the maintenance department. 

[Guest BeaverDriver]

Thanks Gary. Sorry for taking so long to get back. Been a bit under the weather lately.

 

I found my problem was related to my start up situation. Looks like the default 172 fuel cutoff switch is labeled backwards and I was starting flights with the fuel in the cutoff position. For whatever reason, most aircraft that are multi-engined are ok with that on the left engine, but the right has issues. Sometimes the engine will start fine and run for the whole flight, but sometimes it either won't start or it will fail during the flight. Since I have saved a default flight with the fuel cutoff plunger in the opposite position, I've not had any problems with any aircraft. Took me a while to find it, but I figured the problem was at my end, so I wanted to really troubleshoot this thoroughly before I said too much.

 

Thanks Gary.