It’s been a while since I flew the Ki-44-II, but I don’t remember messing with MEC much. Definitely not as needed as with 109s. It does overheat a bit on WEP, but it also cools down fast even on auto. The plane is incredibly powerful for its BR limited only by the ammo count in my opinion. I think if you just pull it off of WEP every once and a while, you’ll be fine, and still handily outclimb almost everything you face, and definitely outmaneuver anything you can’t. It is a monster machine.
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Yes, thank you. And also to Burger for the great answers. I pulled the Ki-44 out of the hangar yesterday and I’m satisfied. Prop pitch 100%, I open and close the coolers as needed and change the supercharge at 2,500m and everything seems to work very well. This plane climbs even better than the 109, amazing.
And his weapons are wing breakers, works very well, like 20mm canons. I need to get used to them, and fine tune the aiming, aiming must be a bit different from the 109 F2. I think japanes 12,7mm has lower velocity.
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Don’t forget that you can separate the wing and nose mounted guns using the weapon selector, and only fire two at a time. This doubles your trigger time at the cost of burst mass, a good trade in most cases, though it is awkward since the proper aiming solution for the nose guns and the wing guns is quite different due to convergence.
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It’s really easy in casenof US and Japanese planes - set prop pitch to highh value (in Ki-44-II it can 90-100%) and that’s all. Just remember about spercharger gear switch, and that’s all “manual engine control” you have to do.
This plane is an absolute monster and I love making Yak-3 players miserable using it.
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As I said above, I flew the 109 F-2 for a long time, absolute love, soul mate, and the Ki-44, especially the Ki-44 II remained as the only aircraft I was afraid of, without the altitude advantage I felt I had no chance against it, so I decided to try it and I totaly understand now, it’s a monster. It has everything, it climbs absolutely amazingly, it has speed too, it’s not as agile as the zero or the Ki-43 but it can handle most opponents, and the weapons are very effective, the only thing you need to get used to is the lower velocities of japanese 12,7mm.
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It actually has pretty decent ballistics. Way better than MG151/20, that’s for sure. The exploding bullet is great. Anyway, I’m happy this plane is 3.7, because I don’t have to face it in my 5.0 planes :D
You’re absolutely right, MG151/20 and how currently works was one of the reasons I stopped flying the 109 F-4 and tried the 109 F-2 instead, and I fell in love with the MG151/15 and got used to it too :) and that’s why I’m having a bit of trouble aiming now with the Ki-44 and Japanese 12.7mm. Velocity of MG151/15 is almost 1.000m/s. Custom makes all things easy :) it takes a few games :) Yesterday I played my first 9 battles with Ki-44 II and got only 18 kills, I could have got much more, but aiming. When I get used to the Japanese 12.7mm, it’s going to be a slaughter!
Whilst the rest of you posts look fine - imho there are 2 things not correct.
- If plane has auto setting for prop pitch - leave it.
- The reason why 109s overrev
Regarding point 1:
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If we have a common understanding that prop pitch (PP) and rads were adjusted via MEC in order to have the maximum power output whilst WEPping without killing the engine due to overheating or overrev - your claim is not helpful, a lot of planes rely on reducing the engine power via PP whilst WEPping, best example is the J-21 A-1 which can be flown with full WEP the whole match - if you set the PP to 75% and both rads to 50%.
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So it is a question to find the individual sweet spot considering power increase via WEP, power decrease via PP and the drag of the rads…
Regarding point 2:
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Do some research about the EVG (Einheitenverstellgeraet) of 109 F-Gs and you find out the 109s in WT (and i am quite sure still in IL-2) suffer from the missing limitations of the system - the pilot was able to change PP via a thumb button on the power lever (=technically a HOTAS :-)) from ~ 20-70% - it was technically impossible to override these settings.
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But in wt you can, that’s why you kill their engines. The web is full with hundreds of posts describing this phenomenon in certain (ofc Russia made) video games…
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I know very well that the prop pitch works differently in German planes, and I use it myself only as an airbrake, of course I first reduce the throttle to 0%, or alternatively when gliding without engine I set the prop pitch to 0% to decreasing the drag. For all other situations, I leave it entirely to automatic PP control, thanks god…109s has it. But Ki-44 does not have! And that’s why I originally published this post, because if I want to work with radiators, I also need to work with PP.
In a few battles yesterday I left the PP for the Ki-44 at 100% all the time and practically ran on WEP all the time, I set the coolers between 40-70% as needed and there was no overheating problem. Overrev is out of the question for the Ki-44.
Difference using MEC on this plane vs. AEC are subtle but substantial. your top speed with at 100% throttle increases by about 13kph which is alot. AEC radiator is set incorrectly like many planes.
- regarding the ki-44, super charger gear shifts should be 2800m at 100% throttle and 2300m for WEP (2800/2300).
- This plane should be flown at 100%prop pitch
- This plane has little radiator drag.
keep it simple for the sake of maintaining situational awareness. Sticking to those 3 things above in bullets is all you need. adjust super charger shifts up in altitude about 100m for every 100kph your going over 280kph. so add 100m for 300kph, then another 100m for a total of +200m for 400kph and the same for 500kph for a total of +300m ect. if you do that youll never have a significant hp drop.
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First, do you have WTRTI?
Second, set prop pitch to 90% and keep rads at 40-50%. This means your Ki-44 can WEP for any amount of time you want without overheating. There are certain altitudes where you’ll have to manage the supercharger gear (1st or 2nd) and you may want to increase prop pitch above your supercharger’s critical altitude.
So let’s visualize this.
Be aware that these will change with speed, so if you’re going really fast, you can stay in the 1st supercharger gear for a big higher. At 100% prop pitch, generally you won’t be able to keep your engine cool even with 100% radiators, unless you’re in the sections in my graph marked with 100% PP (prop pitch).
If your engine or oil temperature gets to orange while at 100% PP, drop it to 90%. When you notice it getting much cooler (like engine temp below 220-230C), raise to 95 or 100% again.
It’s definitely a much stronger performer at low altitude, up high it lacks power. Don’t forget your supercharger gears of course.
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And what about the rudder of Ki-44?? What is your experiences? Have you had any issue with it? I think I definetly have. It’s a thing that spoils my impression of the plane, and in many situations has made it impossible for me to aiming correctly.
Use your lift vector not your rudder.
Did gaijin “fiddle” with this flight model again? When did it start overheating at prop100?
No overheating with open rads, even hot maps, 80% rads is enough and above 5.000m i can almost close them.
You say, use ONLY lift…well, but I am using mouse when i finaly aming on target, aiming due to plane control is much more harder than in 109.
Only does that with WEP, but as far as I know it’s always been like that.
Because you’re way above your critical altitude and not getting full manifold pressure. Anywhere I marked with 90% PP on my graph, you’ll overheat doing that unless you get off WEP, regardless of how much you open your radiators.
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Yes, you’re right. But on the initial climb the Ki-44 will quickly overcome those altitude ranges, and once you’re at 5,000m the engine will cool itself, which is helped by turning off the WEP. Anyway, I use lowering the prop pitch as another option to cool the engine. But in most cases I can just turn off the WEP in peace.
There is a lot to keep an eye on in terms of altitude and so on, of course if one puts in the work and changes the settings as your chart shows, I believe full performance will be achieved.
I think the stuff about radiators, prop pitch and supercharge is cleared up.
What’s bugging me now is the high speed control, and I don’t think it’s even at full high speed sometimes, just weird handling at times. On the War Thunder wiki it says something about Ki-44 instructor problems, instability of rudders and ailerons, maybe that’s it.
What is your experience with plane control and handling of Ki-44? With rudder for example?
Setting the prop pitch to 98% can solve most overheating issues you will encounter at 100%. If your engine is still too hot you can open the radiators even more or lower the PP to something ~90%.
True, but I don’t find myself at or above 5km for very long. Usually I start a dogfight there and amidst all the maneuvers I’ll drop down back into 90% PP zone.
The Ki-44 has some interesting handling that’s for sure, though I don’t think its just rudder. Unlike a 109 or other aircraft, the intructor flies the Ki-44 much closer to its aerodynamic limit in hard turns, and apparently can’t fully compensate for that instability, which is very noticeable when you try to do a snap roll at low-ish speeds.
Rudder alone is more of an issue while trying to pull lead on someone, and it feels a lot like the Ki-43-II and -III in that it doesn’t use quite enough of it.