Since there are a lot of newcomers coming in to CoD I thought it might be useful to give a little overview of CEM, Complex Engine Management, which is one of the most funny and rewarding things this sim has to offer. I actually think that a lot of us who played Il-2 Classic were wishing that the engine management could be a little bit more realistic, to approximate our sim experiences a bit more to those of our WWII fighter heroes. Well, it IS more realistic in CoD, and that is a major part of the fun to be had with this sim. I personally think it strikes a good balance between "giving us more" and not going overboard à la DCS A-10, which is only for the most fanatic of button pushers.

So, the CEM is not VERY hard, but you definitely need to make a little effort.

I'd suggest you start out by setting at least throttle, prop pitch and mixture to your joystick. I personally have the radiators, flaps, landing gear, etc., on easy-to-remember keyboard keys.

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Early Spit
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Lets first look at the start-up procedure of the early Spit, which is quite simple:

Throttle to idle (i.e. a tiny bit forward from the most backward position)
"i" for ignition
Add a little throttle gradually, up to maybe ten-fifteen percent, but not so much that the engine starts running rough.
Watch temps climb to "nice and warm", i.e. around 60 to 80 degrees (Temp gauges in lower-right corner of dash-board. Speed up time if you're impatient)
Open radiator ("handbrake handle" left of the seat)
Full throttle and take off.

The important bit is that you should hold off on giving too much throttle when you hear and see (vibrations) the engine running rough. Just wait a while and let the coolant and oil heat up and then the engine will run fine, even eventually with full throttle.

After you take off, you can then mess with mixture if you fly high up and with prop pitch if you want to fly faster. However, the early Spit only has two settings for mixture and two for prop pitch, so it isn't as if you need to micro-manage anything. Prop pitch and mixture in the early Spit is for optimizing your performance in flight up high and fast, but let's do baby steps first and just learn to take off, fly around and land again.

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Bf-109
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Now the Bf-109:

Fuel cock open (big handle with round knob in upper-left corner of the cockpit)
Throttle to idle (a bit off the backwards stop)
"i" for ignition
Wait for temps to go nice and warm, 60-80 degrees. The temp gauges are in the lower middle of the dash-board, behind the tip of the control column).
Open radiator fully
Full throttle and take-off.

Prop pitch is more important for running the Bf-109 engine well than it is for the early Spit. The indicator looks like a clock-face and is on the extreme right of the dash-board. The prop pitch handle is smack in the middle of the dash-board. Interestingly, the handle only shows your input (up for coarse pitch, down for fine) but not the actual prop pitch position, since it springs back to neutral. So, unlike the Spit, the prop pitch handle is not simultaneously a prop pitch indicator: you have to look at the clock-face for that. It actually makes sense that the pilots didn't need to fiddle with a very sensitive handle for an action that could ruin their engine in seconds.

In flight you have to fiddle quite a bit with the prop pitch to fly at anything but slow speed. So, only low pitch for take-off and fast climb. For the rest you need to input a more coarse pitch. Listen to the engine and look at the rpm's. Remember, you're flying for the Führer, so be sharp.

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I intend to add more CEM quick and dirty guides for other planes to this first posting, but this should be enough for your first ten hours with the sim. I'm a bit of a knucklehead myself, so I'm sure some errors crept into this first posting. Alert me to them and they will be swiftly fixed!

Happy flying.

BTW, if you want to see it, have a look at the movies in my signature.

Great stuff there Frey! Hey, if you're real motivated, you could add in some screen shots pointing out the various controls for those that are new to the cockpit.

No, we'll keep it quick and dirty... (i.e. summer holiday coming up)

No worries! Have a great holiday!

Thanks for the quick guide
I've finally got the sim and I'm just blown away, It's fantastic. I imagine it'll only get better as well


^^^^Although I fall into this category, I find the engine management a welcome challenge. It "feels" more like I'm flying.
The a10 does have a lot of buttons, but man it's easy to fly. Hit 200 buttons, throttle up, hit a few more buttons, pull the stick back and don't hit the ground! Then hit about 200 more buttons and you're good to go

Sure, as you say: Easy!

Im telling you! It's easy (not the avionics). Starts up in the air and just try to depart controlled flight without recovering. It's harder to do that than it is to program a new flight plan into your CDU well getting missiles shot at you!

One quick question for you gents, sorry for the OT, is there an easy way to disable the red/blue text that pops up when your wingmen speak to you? The game looks so good I can hardly stand seeing my screen filled up with all that stuff

Its easy when you get an interactive tutorial and comprehensive manual.

Nice guide Frey I'm going to print this off so that I can refer to it once I pick CloD up.

There's some nice startup vids on YouTube too by Jimbosmith: http://www.youtube.com/user/jimbosmith123#p/u

Yup. 1C have proved a little bit lacking in that area. As well.

But, hey, it is also fun to find out stuff by ourselves... - And it keeps the XBox crowd away...

And: If any newbie finds this guide lacking, pls tell me where it is less than pedagogical and I'll try to rectify it.

- And to the oldtimers... - If you find any gross errors in the guide pls tell me...

Any idea what could be wrong?

when trying to start Spitfire engine it does start, but after few seconds stops.

Make sure you turn the fuel cock on and verify its on in the cockpit. If the fuel cock doesn't turn on, make sure you haven't selected unlimited fuel in the realism settings.

Fuel cock should be on, but currently the whole multiplayer stuff is so unstable (at least in my PC), that I think I'll wait for the next patch before continuing CEM experimenting. I get freezes almost every time.

What keeps you from playing around with the CEM offline?

Should be on?? I have to turn the fuel cock on in the Spit.

Yeah, it isn't on by default. You have to turn it on.

BTW, I did the exact same thing early on and was pretty frustrated about not getting the engine to start. Then I watched jimbo's great vids and learned...

The Spit usually needs about 10 -12% throttle as well, it then takes some time to warm up, slowly throttle it up as the engine warms, or else you will stall it.

Not sure of your PC equipment, but I would suggest trying either turning off shadows, turn the textures to medium and turn trees to off, you may not need to do the first two depending on your set up, but the trees off is apparently helping with the online sound loss issue, also SSAO off and no epileptic filter, unless you feel you need it on that is.

Tiger, is this something you think should be changed in the first posting? - Just asking, because I don't myself see a big difference from what I wrote there.

I'm getting the Hurricane started, warmed up and off the ground OK, it's after that that I keep blowing up the engine. What are some of the "no-nos" regarding engine management while flying? I already try to keep the temps from going too high and try to stay out of the high boost range with the throttle, but I'll still have the engine seize up nearly every flight.

If your temps (both oil and coolant) are OK then I can only think of the mixture as the factor making your engine seize up.

Should it be full rich most of the time? I've been leaning it out until I see the exhaust flame turn blue. How do I know when it's appropriate to lower the RPMs?

Ok, I'd need more experts fliers to chip in, but I think you should only start to lean it if you go really high, several kilometers. However, if you have the wrong mixture stetting the engine doesn't seize up immediately, it just starts to sputter badly and you can then save the situation by going full rich.

If you tell me that your engine seizes up irrevocably, then I'm thinking that you might have damaged it by taking off too early. Are you sure that you get both oil and coolant hot enough? I like to see them both edging up towards 80 or 90 degrees before I take up at radiator fully open. Only when I am in cruise and with coarse pitch do I start to take the radiator down from fully open.

Anyway, you should just know that it is indeed possible to fly the Hurri for as long as you want with no engine trouble. I basically never have trouble, even on more than half-hour long missions. I generally never have trouble with the engine, just leave it and forget it...

I do have a couple of Hurri missions up, among my movies, maybe you can see if I do anything dramatically diferrent from you?

Thanks for the tips, I did a brief test and found the engine seemed OK if I left her on full rich. How to you know when it's safe to lower the prop pitch (RPMs) using both the Rotol and DH props? Are there settings that should be avoided? So far I'm lowering the RPMs to about 2800- what's a good setting for cruise?
It's a good thing these are only virtual engines- I'd owe the crown a real pile of cash by now...

Murph, I think you should have a look at Flea's fantastic documents in the stickied thread at the top of this forum:

http://simhq.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/3342810/UPDATE_7_OCT_2011_Aircraft_Ope.html#Post3342810

Thanks, I already have them downloaded and the pilot notes for the Hurricane are printed out and sitting right here next to me. I managed to blow up engines even with those.

How long is it before your engine gives up? If it is less than a minute after take off then it has to be your radiator. Did you know it is closed by default?

Thanks for the help, guys. I'm starting to get a better grip on using the Rotol prop. Now to start learning the DH5-20.

Keep RPM within the ranges suggested in flea's document and make sure your boost isn't too high. If you balance these with both the propeller and throttle you should be right.

If your spit is getting hot and you have some altitude it is a good idea to nose down gently to pick up speed and open radiator. A lot of people throttle back instead but the spit needs high airflow (speed) to cool down.

I understand that the DH5-20 is just a two-pitch prop but I haven't quite worked out how to use it properly. I do the normal start-up with the pitch set fine and wait for the temps to get into the right range, but when I throttle up for take off, she starts to run really rough. If I throttle back it smooths out but then I don't have enough thrust for takeoff.
So I'm not quite clear on proper procedures using the DH5-20.
Edit; After some testing, I find that although the real Hurricane only had two mixture settings, full rich and full lean (weak), since I have my mixture on a slider I can lean it just a little and it cures the rough running on take-off. I still need to keep the radiator open all the time or she overheats real fast, even at cruise settings.