C-47 3.14 beta lack of power

Hopefully this is the proper forum for this question. I'm running P3d v4.5 and today I had my first attempt at flying Manfred Jahn's remarkable C-47 3.14 over the Andes. I couldn't get over the range as I was just running out of power trying to get above 15k ft. The aircraft was fairly heavy (28,000 lbs plus) and by the time I more or less clawed up to 15,000 it was just able to hold altitude but was having to fly so nose up it was ridiculous. I had the throttles firewalled and was only getting about 26.5 MAP and tried a few different RPM's. My IAS was about 90-95 kts and I decided there was not much sense trying to get much higher. I was really started when I went to an outside view to see the plane hanging on it's props at about a 10 to 15 degree AOA. I know they flew these things over the Hump and I seem to recall the plane had a ceiling of over 23k. Has anyone else experienced this?

Thanks in advance

J Ferris

Real world aircraft have the same problem. It's due to altitude. The thinner air means that the engines develop less power, and the props have trouble biting into the thinner air, also. Did you lean the mixture, or perhaps you have it set on auto-lean?

Yes, C-47s flew the hump, but they had a lot of problems, and mostly had to find passes that were relatively low. So you're just experiencing what they had to deal with back then.

but was having to fly so nose up it was ridiculous.

Real world C-47s do that, too, under those conditions. Again, it's the thin air. A wing generates lift with a combination of speed and angle of attack, to keep it simple. As you get less indicated airspeed, the angle of attack needs to increase. At the altitudes you're dealing with, and especially when you're heavy, that angle of attack (AOA) is approaching the stalling AOA.

An increase of AOA means the nose has to go up. Look up AOA, stall, airpeed in Wikipedia to get further insight on this.