Full Power?

Pro Member First Officer
KevinTsai First Officer

Just wondering, in real life and in the flightsimulator, can you use full power all the time during takeoff, climb, and cruise, or do you use partial power during these stages? If so, why?

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Pro Member Captain
Chris Morris (morris91) Captain

to be honest i dont know what partial is but

i do know since the 737-400 any plane in the 737 family before the 737-400 the pilots could not use full power above 17.000ft because the fan blande ruptuer it happend to midlands flight 92 in 1989

Here's the story if your interested: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kegworth_air_disaster

Sad story

Pro Member First Officer
faust1200 First Officer

If you define full power by the throttle being "firewalled" or all the way forward then the answer is yes and no. In real life, in small piston powererd planes, typically you use full throttle during takeoff. Typically there is a separate power setting for climb. The idea is to prevent overheating and excessive wear on the engine. In cruise there is a different setting simply because you don't need as much power to maintain airspeed in level flight and this reduced power saves fuel. In larger planes during takeoff, in real life, you typically won't have the throttle full forward. Because with turbine (jet) engines full power is limited by an N temperature (the temp. measured somewhere in the turbine) Additionally airlines set their own max. temps/power settings to help reduce wear on the engines so the only time you would have the throttles full forward is in an emergency.

In the sim - you can fly with the throttles full forward. The sim doesn't measure wear or really care if you overheating even though you will get an overheat indication.

Pro Member Chief Captain
VegasFlyer Chief Captain

faust1200 wrote:

If you define full power by the throttle being "firewalled" or all the way forward then the answer is yes and no. In real life, in small piston powererd planes, typically you use full throttle during takeoff. Typically there is a separate power setting for climb. The idea is to prevent overheating and excessive wear on the engine. In cruise there is a different setting simply because you don't need as much power to maintain airspeed in level flight and this reduced power saves fuel. In larger planes during takeoff, in real life, you typically won't have the throttle full forward. Because with turbine (jet) engines full power is limited by an N temperature (the temp. measured somewhere in the turbine) Additionally airlines set their own max. temps/power settings to help reduce wear on the engines so the only time you would have the throttles full forward is in an emergency.

In the sim - you can fly with the throttles full forward. The sim doesn't measure wear or really care if you overheating even though you will get an overheat indication.

You are correct on all that Faust. I'll just add that in real life it's not even needed to push the throttle to the max on take-off cause those engines are very powerful.

Pro Member First Officer
KevinTsai First Officer

I see guys. You know, sometime in the flightsimulator, some of the Just Flight's Flyable Aircraft have such a bad aircraft.cfg. For example, its B777-200 is bad. During takeoff, I have to wait till at least 220-240 knots to liftoff the ground and I almost run out of runway everytime-that's only if 1,000 lb are added into the payload. With nothing in the payload, it liftoff at least 180 knots.

I definitely need full power for aircraft like that to takeoff or I'll run off the runway.

Pro Member First Officer
faust1200 First Officer

KevinTsai wrote:

I see guys. You know, sometime in the flightsimulator, some of the Just Flight's Flyable Aircraft have such a bad aircraft.cfg. For example, its B777-200 is bad. During takeoff, I have to wait till at least 220-240 knots to liftoff the ground and I almost run out of runway everytime-that's only if 1,000 lb are added into the payload. With nothing in the payload, it liftoff at least 180 knots.

I definitely need full power for aircraft like that to takeoff or I'll run off the runway.

A notch or 2 of flaps should help a bit. It's also realistic for the big boys to use some flaps on takeoff. (NOT full flaps!)

Pro Member First Officer
KevinTsai First Officer

faust1200 wrote:

KevinTsai wrote:

I see guys. You know, sometime in the flightsimulator, some of the Just Flight's Flyable Aircraft have such a bad aircraft.cfg. For example, its B777-200 is bad. During takeoff, I have to wait till at least 220-240 knots to liftoff the ground and I almost run out of runway everytime-that's only if 1,000 lb are added into the payload. With nothing in the payload, it liftoff at least 180 knots.

I definitely need full power for aircraft like that to takeoff or I'll run off the runway.

A notch or 2 of flaps should help a bit. It's also realistic for the big boys to use some flaps on takeoff. (NOT full flaps!)

Sorry, I forgot to mention that I use 15 or 20 degrees of flaps on takeoff usually. Even with flaps like that, the plane won't takeoff unless its going at a very high rate of speed. This only happens to some airplanes that I fly, especially the Just Flight's Flyable B777-200. My guess is that the center of gravity is a little too up front rather than being in the center.

Pro Member Chief Captain
Drew B (belgeode) Chief Captain

Kevin... check airliners.net to make sure your aircraft.cfg has the proper zero weight listed. I had that problem too, the default 777 is set to be too heavy that when I use FSPassengers I can only fit like half the passengers before it is overweight... and i gotta dump like 3/4 of the fuel. I tweaked it based on the stats I saw on that site and now I can fit a full load.

Also flaps I usually use 5 degrees flaps on takeoff... which was what I was told to do for a 777. Either way... the 777 was never meant for short runways lol.... I did find that out the hard way.

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