Hi all,

The biggest difficulty of making tutorial vids like the Spitfire Mk. I movie I just did is to get a list of the correct aircraft operations. A script for the videos, in short.

I got lots of help from Flea's very comprehensive pdf, and based on that one I made my own "quick guide" (see below).

What I need is a SIMILAR check list for the Bf-109E (manual prop pitch), because that is the one that will star in my next video. Do you think you can help me out? Not necessarily with the whole thing, but maybe just with bits and pieces of the complete list.

Importantly, I don't want just "educated guesses". I'd like it to be the proper historical procedure as amended for Il-2 CoD. What do I mean by that? Well, for instance in the case of the Spit it is not necessary to flick the magnetos on before ignition. It is done automatically in this sim when you press ignition, which I think is a good compromise between realism and playability (Basically, pressing "i" is short for "throwing the magneto switches and then engaging the starter".

Many arcane and superfluous steps have been omitted from the sim, and I'd like to weed them out of the "quick guide" too.

So, do you think you can help me with something like this, but for the 109?:

SPITFIRE Mk. I

Start-up:
Fuel cock Open
Mixture lever Rich
Throttle Idle
Prop pitch Fine
Radiator Fully open

Take-off:
RPM ~2800
Boost Not above +6.25
Take-off +85 mph
Climb speed 160 mph

Landing:
Mixture lever Rich
Prop pitch Fine
Gear down Below 160 mph
Flaps down Below 140 mph
Landing speed 90 mph

- What aditionally would be really great is to also have the explanation for (for instance) the dials and why a particular ATA boost level is correct. In the Bf-110 for example, the ATA has "d", "15" and "30" on the dial, meaning the boost that is acceptable for (infinite) "duration", and for 15 and for 30 minutes. It is stuff like that I need to explain in the videos.

Also settings for climb and for cruise are needed, as well as the spin recovery drill.

For the next video I would like to also include trimming the plane, which is missing from the Spittie vid, but which I should have included.

Anyway, I thank you for your contributions and I hope we can nail this!

Easy enough, the 109 is a simpleton compared to the Brit planes!

Before start:

Adjust altimeter
Fuel cock open
Oil rads closed
Water rads closed
Prop pitch 11:30 to fully fine (historically it was 11:30 recommended)
Adjust elevator trim slightly nose up
Lower flaps if carrying a heavy bombload

(In-game, there's no need to warm the engine up, but I still generally run it for 1 minute or so, to get the needles moving)

Take off:
open Oil Rads (100%)
Open Water Rads 100% (I use 75% open in game)
Throttle gradually to full
engage WEP as speed picks up
RPM: Do not exceed 2300rpm
Boost 1.42 ata
Take off: 175-185kph
Climb speed 250kph
Adjust elevator trim
Close oil & water rads to maintain desired temp

Gear up before 250kph
Flaps up after gear stowed

Landing:
Prop pitch to fine
open water rads
under 300kph lower flaps 1/2
under 250kph lower landing gear
Adjust elevator trim, slightly nose up
on final leg, reduce throttle and continue to lower flaps as necessary to slow plane into slow sink
Landing speed ~150kph

Quick addition. If you are playing in a MP server. Then immediately on spawn, you need to flick the prop pitch control to counter the bug that tries to fully coarsen the prop pitch. If you do not do this quickly, you will find the computer has automatically reduced your prop pitch to 8:30 with no pilot input, and you will be forced to adjust it yourself. Many rookie pilots won't know this and will ask why they can't get the engine to the powerband, and no speed for takeoff.

Remember controls for Prop Pitch are reversed in the 109/110 compared to other planes.

Thanks for your replies Cheesehawk!

Next weekend I'll try to check out your procedures together with what I got from Tvrdi and robtek at the banana forum and Flea's pdf, and then they hopefully coincide... And hopefully they do not stray away from the official historical manuals! That is the crucial point for me, because rather than just "what works in the sim", I want my tutorial to reflect the correct historical procedures (as amended and simplified in the sim).

Also, in addition to what you so helpfully posted I also need the "why" of the different steps. So I can string them together according to the internal operational logic of the plane.

I'm not sure I understand what you mean by needing the why? Certainly you don't mean simple things like fuel cock, prop pitch, radiators? As for the others, most are simply the results of your inputs (i.e. ATA 1.42 when engaging WEP, speed at 180kph when lifting off). If I had a better idea what you want, I am always glad to explain things, but I really don't want to seem sarcastic or smug if I start explaining the little things.

Frey,

Flea's 109 procedures came directly from a 109E handbuch. I know this because he had my wife translate them for him. The handbuch didn't exactly document all the "why's" of each step, however, which is actually pretty rare for a checklist. A checklist/operator's guide assumes the pilot has a pretty thorough ground training and doesn't go over basic stuff like rationale for turning a switch on before or after another switch. I'm sure you can get lots of educated guesses on it, though.

OK, an example:

From the banana forum reactions to my Spittie tutorial:

http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/showthread.php?t=29528&page=4



And



... These are the kinds of info I'd like to convey in my video...

I'm at work so will reply more fully later...

BTW, check out the replies to this thread too:

http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/showthread.php?t=29550

Quite a bit to sort out this coming weekend!

Ok, gotcha. I just didn't want to seem paternizing if I gave a detailed explanation on why to do certain things. Will get on it when I'm off work.

Fantastic if you can help. You have seen Flea's pdf haven't you?

Ya, the guide is decent for things like ez startup and engine limits, but the thread on the banana forums probably covers everything I can think of already. Some of them seemed to have wanted to show their knowledge of the real procedures a bit too much though, haha. Like I said, the 109 is pure ease to get started and up in the air.

From Mr.X training video http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=sipyhBXx8rE

0.24 Stop prop pitch immediately on spawn.

1.58 Trim after take-off

2.38 Prop-pitch basics

3.16 2100-2200 RPM for horizontal flight

3 climb modes:
4.10 - shallow climb with no speed loss - 2230-2250 RPM. Start climb at 350+ km/h. 370-390 km/h - optimal speed. This mode can be used to extend from enemy or quickly fly to some area.
4.48 - medium climb - maintain 2300 RPM & speed <= 300 km/h
5.46 - max climb rate - 2380-2400 RPM - 260 km/h

6.50 In a climb (or dive) do not change prop pitch to 12:00 (or full coarse) immediately. Change it in small steps to maintain 2250-2280 RPM. Set 12:00 @ 320 km/h and below.

7.24 In a dive gain 2300 RPM before setting more coarse pitch

May change after patch.
Hope this helps. S!

It certainly does Ataros, even though I don't hope to reach MrX's level of perfection!