The Perils of Warp!

[CaptSopwith 22]

Wow, did I just have a nerve jarring mission!

 

My American pilot, James Patterson (raise your hand if you know the reference) is currently serving with the 148^th Aero Squadron in 1918. The 148^th is equipped with the (in)famous Sopwith Camel. I must admit, I have very little seat time in the camel. My British fighter of choice is the SE5a. As the old Red Baron II manual said, the SE5 made even a mediocre pilot look good, and I consider myself mediocre at best when things really get ugly in the air.

 

Our flight was conducting artillery spotting about 40 miles to the southeast of our base. With the evening growing late, I decided to warp my way to the target. I know, I’m a purist at heart but a realist when it comes to getting enough sleep before work the next day. We popped out of warp over the lines. Amazingly, we traveled 40 miles without running into a single enemy flight - a rarity in 1918.

 

I should note that I fly with my settings ticked to the DiD standard, which includes having auto mixture turned off. I like knowing that I have to coax the performance out of my engine during a flight. I was about to discover, however, that this was a serious mistake. As I came out of warp, I realized my engine was dead – the prop wind milling in the air. I quickly restarted the engine but couldn’t coax it back to life. I tried maxing out the throttle and adjusting the mixture but to no avail. Every time I restarted, the engine turned over a few times, sputtered, coughed, and conked out again.

 

To add to my dilemma, we came out of warp because we had encountered a flight of blue and yellow Fokker D7s, and they weren’t happy to see us. I decided after the first unsuccessful restart that my best bet was to nose down and run for my life. After all, my five wingman seemed to have the Fokker’s pretty well tied up at this point.

 

All the way down to close to 4,000 feet, I kept trying to restart my dead engine. I had some glimmers of hope, but no success. It was at that moment I began to hear gunfire, and this time it was close. Sure enough, one of the Fokker’s had disengaged from the furball and followed me down with the intent of shooting me out of the sky. Thankfully, and this is why I love this sim, a trusty flight member was hot on his tail, trying to save me from an early end to my career, not to mention my virtual life.

 

The Fokker overshot me and I looked up to see both the blue and yellow painted scout followed hotly by my wingman. In another fantastic attention to detail, we were flying right through a massive flak barrage, filled with both black and white flak bursts. Apparently everyone within ten miles of us, both German and Allied were firing at us as we fought it out! At that moment my engine finally coughed to life. Eureka! I maxed the throttle, adjusted the mixture, and before I knew it I was back in the fight, or at least able to defend myself.

 

There wasn’t much work for me to do, however. My wingman, hot under the collar, was already blazing away at the offending Fokker. He blasted the German scout out of the sky, finally setting the D7 on fire and sending it screaming to earth (complete with sound effects – another tip of the hat towards Creaghorn!).

 

At that point, knuckles white, I made for the nearest base and set her down. I figured I had pressed my luck enough for one day. Around me was a flight of Re8’s attacking front line positions, complete with bombs under the wings. There must have been 8 or 10 of them. The other Fokkers lost out, my U.S. 148^th wingmen taking them out rather nicely.

 

And this was after my pilot's first campaign mission last night – a supposed balloon busting sortie that never was. We had barely formed up when we were bounced by a flight of all black Pfalz DIII’s. I learned quickly that full torque on the stick is a poor decision in the Camel. I nearly killed myself with a quick spin into the dirt three or four times! I managed to fire a few rounds at some enemy planes, but with no effect. Most of the time I was trying to keep my Camel pointing the right way.

 

 

That’s the pure joy of OFF, you never know what the day is going to bring.

 

 

[CaptSopwith 22]

I just realized this should have been in the Reports from the Front section of the board and I've taken the liberty of reposting it there.

[Bullethead 12]

I should note that I fly with my settings ticked to the DiD standard, which includes having auto mixture turned off. I like knowing that I have to coax the performance out of my engine during a flight. I was about to discover, however, that this was a serious mistake. As I came out of warp, I realized my engine was dead – the prop wind milling in the air. I quickly restarted the engine but couldn’t coax it back to life. I tried maxing out the throttle and adjusting the mixture but to no avail. Every time I restarted, the engine turned over a few times, sputtered, coughed, and conked out again.

 

Great story. What was wrong with your engine, and what does that have to do with warping? Was it a case of having the wrong mixture for too long at the wrong altitude, or just one of those random engine failures? I use automixture and my engine just dies occasionally.

 

My worst experience with warping was that once I had a glitch where my flight didn't turn back at the end of its path but just kept going on the ingress heading. By the time I looked up from the beer I'd started to open after I hit warp, we were over the NW corner of Germany . We only had enough fuel remaining to just barely make it over the river into pasture in the SE part of the neutral Netherlands, where my entire flight was interned for the duration. Worst navigation error ever . But that was long ago and I've never had such a problem since.

[CaptSopwith 22]

Was it a case of having the wrong mixture for too long at the wrong altitude, or just one of those random engine failures?

 

I think it was the mixture / altitude combination. I was flying at full rich when I warped and when we came out of warp we were at relatively high altitude (I'm guessing 11,000 or so ft?). The engine seemed choked. I tried to adjust the mixture and throttle but every time I'd hit E to restart the engine, the controls for both the plane's mixture and throttle would reset (both to their max setting) and cause the engine to choke out again. Only after I got low enough for the full mixture settings to work did the engine refire. It was quite an exciting few minutes - especially since my entire flight was tangled up in a major dogfight at that point. To be honest, it felt more like a random failure at first, which is why I dived away from the fight (besides being incredibly vulnerable in the middle of a fight with no power), and headed for the nearest friendly base in the hopes that I could just land.

[+Polovski 435]

Great story CS, sometimes you can start the engine then rapidly reduce mixture (whilst pumping and it will catch) and dive a little, takes practice but can be done. Also yeah lean the engine before warp can help.