mfzola

Thanks, Deutschmark! I have this skin on my DVII for SDOEWW1. I was hoping that you'd make it for FE as well. You wouldn't happen to be working on Willi Gabriel's DVII, or know of someone that is? Mike Z.

Agreed- we wait and see what TK does.... In truth, the sim is just fine the way it is...... you're right- the subject of engine starts has been flogged quite a bit, hasn't it?

TailspinAgain- No problem, no harm, no foul.... Indio- It sounds to me like you understood the procedure correctly. The pilot basically switches on to provide power to the ignition system, at which time someone pulls the prop thru. With a little luck, she fires up. What a thought you had- voice-activated engine start- wow. If I understand you right, a button on the keyboard or joystick could toggle ignition on/off. To start the engine on the ground, you would toggle ignition on, then say "contact", at which time the engine would start turning and hopefully kick over... It's fairly simple, fairly realistic. And your right- if you can't yell 'contact'..... after all, we've all probably yelled something at our computers at some point, flying sims or otherwise..... (heh heh heh) Mike Z.

Don't get me wrong- you're absolutely right that there was no internal starter- I was merely addressing Indio's curiosity about the ignition kill switch and it's uses. Momentum? Force of the air on the prop? Depending on the situation, a little of both, I'd suspect- let's say if you were on the ground, for instance, I would think that you'd be dependent on the momentum, especially when it comes to a spinning rotary engine, to allow a restart. If, on the other hand, you were airborne, with enough altitude to keep the nose down a little more to keep your airspeed up, the force of the air on the prop to keep it windmilling would help as well. -Mike Z.

Hello- Yes, Indio, there was an ignition kill switch on at least those aircraft that used rotary engines, I think because of the way those engines were carburetted- you only had 100% power, so the 'kill' or 'blip' switch was used instead of throttling back to allow these aircraft to land, etc. I'm not sure just now whether or not all the aircraft engines of the time were set up the same way... I think it would be WAY cool to have a blip switch in the sim- and then code it so that your engine wouldn't fire back up if you held the button down too long, to simulate not having enough momentum to restart. That would be a neat little feature, without having to go nuts with additional flight controls. You think? -Mike Z. P.S. The only way to have a truly realistic engine start in a sim like this would be to 1)create a bunch of grease monkeys running around the aircraft, and then 2) program them to run up to your plane and pull the prop thru..... Something not worth the work, in my book..... -M.Z.