WOW! Surprise Forced Landing!

Flying the Shakyjake Cessna 195.

 

Flightplan: UKKK BASO1R SULUM LIDNO ATREK MURK1A LUKK.

Altitude: Climbing from 6,500 to 8,000 MSL

 

1. About 20 miles North of SULUM, power fell to near or at Idle power.

2. Assumption (Yea, I know): Carb. Icing. Applied Carb. heat with no affect.

3. Spot View: Smoke trailing aircraft, but no flame displayed.

4. Set up for a forced landing.

5. At about 2,000 MSL, smoke went away in spot view, still no power.

6. Landed in a field, engine continued to run, but no throttle control.

7. Shut the engine down (mixture control) and restarted the engine with no problem.

8. Takeoff and Continued the flight with no problem.

 

Been flying MSFS since the old original 5 inch floppy days and this is a new experience that I have never seen before. In my realism settings, I have the Flight Model General slider full right, all others full left. The only other things checked are the ignore crashes and damage setting in Crashes and Damage, and Display indicated airspeed in Instruments and lights options.

 

I suspect this may be built into the aircraft modeling, but have flown the ShakyJake 195's many times over the years and have never seen this happen. I tried everything I could think of except shutting the engine down while still in the air. Possibly that would have reset everything and a restart would have solved the problem but we may never know.

 

Happy flying!

RTH

I have that 195, but have never really flown more that about 80-100 miles and not much more than 6,000 feet. The only thing I can think of is the engine RPM. Is there an RPM gauge and a way to reduce prop pitch to lower the RPM into the green zone?

Thanks for the reply Mr. Zippy:

 

Usually with just about all the aircraft in my hanger (and there are many), I check the real world specs. in comparison to the FS model and edit the aircraft.cfg accordingly if data entries seem to be corrupt. The ShakyJake 195 does fly pretty close to the specs. including the range of 690NM @ 70% power. I have flown near that limit a number of times, sometimes at 12,000 feet, possibly even cheating above that for a minute or two threading my way through high altitude mountain ranges.

 

I do have Manifold Pressure, RPM, and Exhaust Temp gauge and do adjust throttle, Prop, and mixture by the book. Everything was normal until power died, then none of the three had any affect with the exception of leaning mixture to the starve point. Going back to rich RPM increased slightly showing that the engine would still run, but not accept any level of power. Ironically after I was on the ground and leaned to shut the engine down, then restarted it everything went back to normal.

 

Again, thanks for your interest.

RTH

it might have something to do with the realism setting, ''engine stress damages engine''

it might have something to do with the realism setting, ''engine stress damages engine''

 

Yes it might. Which is why many of us use that exact realism setting.

As mentioned in my original post, "Aircraft stress causes damage" is not enabled.

 

I will search all of the ".cfg" files. In FSX I find no "exact" setting for "engine stress damages engine" in the "Settings-Realism" display. Where are you seeing this setting?

 

Thanks:

RTH

 

Edit: Note: Under Failures, nothing is armed.

"Aircraft stress causes damage" will create a Crash condition-Flight over, not just make the engines smoke and shut down.

Did a google search for "engine stress damages engine" and found a series of posts concerning this option. (See "FSX Realism Settings - Engines" by RobW, posted on the AVSIM forum, April 27, 2009, 8:24AM.)

 

Apparently this option is only available with "Acceleration" installed and works only with the aircraft installed with Acceleration. Perhaps those of you who have replied to this post can confirm or clarify that.

 

If this is so, it would have nothing to do with the ShakyJake 195. I have spent countless hours in MSFS over the years, including this bird and have never seen this happen before.

 

To be continued?

 

Respectfully:

RTH

In FSX I find no "exact" setting for "engine stress damages engine" in the "Settings-Realism" display. Where are you seeing this setting?

 

 

see where it says engines in the realism settings, you will find it there

see where it says engines in the realism settings, you will find it there

 

It might be in FSX Deluxe and or Acceleration like rhodges said, but not in FSX Standard.

 

"see where it says engines in the realism settings, you will find it there"

 

Negative.

All I have under engines is "Enable automixture" and "Unlimited Fuel". This exactly matches the screenshot included in the referenced post I mentioned above in AvSim.

 

Per chance, Do you have "Acceleration" installed?

 

I am back where I started with my assumption that carb. icing is taking place, which in my mind at least is gaining credibility. After continuing my flight for about another 30 mins. or so, the same thing happened. One thing different this time though: When I descended down to about 2,000 MSL, I gained just enough power to stay in the air. When failure occurs, the engine does continue to run at so low power that MP did not even register. However when I killed the engine there was a small drop in RPM. Back to rich, it grew a bit as well as sound. As I descended I gained power to about 12" MP and RPM increased from about 1300 to 1900 (Prop RPM setting to the firewall). On a number of aircraft I have seen this exact same thing happen. However in all other cases, total power was recovered as the descent took place. Snow and ice are everywhere, I suspect that it is just that cold between the Ukraine and Moldova. Darn it, I don't have an outside temp gauge installed in this panel.

 

This sounds like classic carb. icing to me, and I am wondering if heat is simply not modeled in this aircraft (Yes, I do preflight.). There is no provision in the panel, but I do have the "H" key programmed for Carb. Heat in my controls settings on my keyboard. During preflight the RPM drop is negligible if at all, but this is also the case for a number of aircraft where carb heat does seem to work when needed at altitude, so I don't know if this means it is not available on this bird or not.

 

Is there any line item edit anywhere that would guarantee carb heat, and/or possibly be edited to increase it in any of the config files?

 

Thanks:

RTH

Pitot Heat?? Shift+H

Well, as I was turning final, I suddenly regained full power. After landing I went to full power and pressed my "H" key. Either there is no carb. heat available or it is not sufficient to reduce RPM. There was no noticeable effect. This is a little ironic as there are a number of birds I have flown with injected fuel that should not need carb. heat, but do, and react properly when it is applied. This is a known quirk in MSFS. In this case, exactly the opposite takes place. Here is a bird that should have carb heat, needs it, and it looks like it is missing. I may import a knob or leaver from a working bird to the panel and see if that does anything, but I doubt it.

 

Respectfully:

RTH

yep, it might be carb icing causing the problem

 

anyway, I don't have that aircraft,

 

but try this, when happens again turn the carb heat on, and then lean the mixture and see does that solve the problem

One thing different this time though: When I descended down to about 2,000 MSL, I gained just enough power to stay in the air. When failure occurs, the engine does continue to run at so low power that MP did not even register.

 

It almost sounds like mixture too rich...

To clarify, only Acceleration has the "Engine stress causes damage" option in Aircraft> Realism settings.

The stock FSX Mustang family's engines in particular have a tendency to catch fire with the setting selected, and will start to clatter, smoke, pop flames and lose power within a couple of minutes after takeoff if you're too gung-ho on the throttle like this-

 

http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g64/PoorOldSpike/sub2/FSX-eng-stress_zpsndjm8tb5.jpg~original

Found the problem!

 

I am afraid it was so simple, I overlooked it. The panel of the aircraft in question had no carb. heat leaver, so no indication as to whether it was applied or not was shown. I found that the "H" key was not activating carb. heat in any aircraft although it was assigned in the options>settings>controls>Buttons/Keys. I have no idea why it no longer had any effect. I deleted it and selected it again for Carb. Heat and it still did nothing when the "H" key was pressed. I reassigned the "Ctrl" plus "H" selection for Carb. Heat and it worked just fine. My Cessna 195 seems to now be even more sensitive to carb icing, but application of heat brings power back normally now.

 

For good measure, I installed a leaver for Carb. Heat in my 195 panels and may do the same for a number of other aircraft. Due to this glitch in MSFS it seems like a good idea to me. I even have had some Jets that lost power at altitude and responded to Carb. Heat due to this known glitch.

 

Happy flying:

RTH

I have my realism sliders all the way left (default). Am I missing gameplay here?

I have my realism sliders all the way left (default). Am I missing gameplay here?

 

Pretty much! Do you have crash detection turned off, also? I call this "NOT as real as it gets".