Twin Engine Controls

Something that has been bothering me came back to haunt me today. I've been flying a Caudron G.4 and today I had an engine catch on fire. I managed to extinguish it by shutting down both engines and landed safely, but it came back to me that I couldn't shut down just the one that was burning. I've tried the Engine Select (Shift + 1 or 2) and Engine Deselect (Ctrl + 1 or 2) but they don't seem to do anything. Is there any way to stop just one engine?

SS, i had a very similar experience while flying the Caudron recently, except mine just started to smoke. Also did the same routine with selecting and deselecting individual engines. What that does is give you the ability to control throttle separately, but I haven’t found a way to turn off just one engine. Have you tried turning both engines off, wait for the fire to go out and then turn the engines back on? The “bad” one should not start, I guess. But it would be nice if someone could let us know what the proper procedure is. Maybe play with the magnetos? I haven’t looked in the FAQ. I’ll admit it, I’m lazy.

I hadn't thought to try any of those. I'll look into the magneto idea. Thanks for the suggestions.

.

Sailor_Steve, if you've not sorted out your dual controls yet, here is the trick. Because the sim defaults to "all engines" controls you must first deselect all the engines by hitting "Control+1" and "Control+2", (more if you have more than two engines). Once you've done this you can now select which engine to control by hitting either "Shift+1" or "Shift+2", (again, more if you have more than two engines). When you have one or the other selected all controls will function as normal for the engine selected. It's cumbersome, so one work-around is to assign a pair of open toggles on your joystick for Engine 1 and Engine 2. Toggle 1 up picks "Control+1" and Toggle 1 down picks "Shift+1", with Toggle 2 set similarly for Engine 2.

Hope this helps.

Lou

.

Thanks. I'll give that a try.

I've now tried everything - magnetos, mixture, selecting and deselecting engines in every combination I could think of, and nothing works. Selecting and deselecting and playing with engine start and stop works, but only with the right engine. Nothing I've tried can make the right engine stop while the left keeps running. I would think that individual engine controls would be a given, but apparently not.

.

Sailor_Steve, you can control each engine separately by the method I described above, but perhaps I did not explain it well enough, so allow me to run through the steps using the Caudron G4.

Once in the cockpit you begin by hitting 'E' to get both engines started and ticking away at an idle. Next, hit "Control+1" and "Control+2" and you should have no control over either engine, go ahead and test this by using your throttle and mixture - nothing should happen, both engines should continue to idle away. Now, hit "Shift+1" and you should have full control of Engine 1 only, (i.e., the left one). Throttle, mixture, and mags, will only operate for Engine 1. OK, now hit "Control+1" and then hit "Shift+2", you should now have control of Engine 2 only, (i.e., the right one). Again, give it a test. Once you are satisfied you have it sorted out you can tie the controls back together for both engines by hitting "Select+1" and "Select+2" and take off. Once in the air if you wish to fiddle with one of the engines, let's say the left one, you would deselect the right one first by hitting "Control+2" at which point you will only have control of the left engine. Now you want to fiddle with the right one? Hit "Select+2" and then "Control+1" and you will now only be able to control the right engine. As I said above, it is very cumbersome which is why assigning a toggle for each engine makes things a bit quicker, (assuming you have a pair of center-off, up-down toggles available on your joystick). Again, I hope this helps you out.

Lou

.

Well, that worked, kinda sorta. Not the way I wanted, but at least it's something. I kept trying to shut down one engine using that method, but I just couldn't get it to work. My HOTAS doesn't have enough buttons to work the mixture or magnetos, let alone both. The one thing I could get to work was to deselect and select the engines as you said, then pick the engine I wanted to shut down and hold down the blip switch until it stopped running. As I said, it's not the kind of control I wanted, but at least the next time I have an engine running badly and threatening to catch on fire at least I can shut it down. Now I need to get a new stick with enough buttons attached so I can wear a VR setup.

Thanks for straightening that out.