How does WEP work in RB?

[Wagon Wheel]

Does it only work for so many minutes in total? Or does it work until you cook your motor?

I have used it a lot in RB battle and have never run out of WEP, but I wonder if there is a limit?

[Eftwyrd]

depends on the aircraft, WEP is actually a generalisation for multiple different systems, for example the p51H's WEP is actually water/methinol injection for which it only carries 6 minutes worth (it can continue to dry WEP after this but it wont be near the performance it had). Others like the bf109k4 can WEP until they kill their engine if they so want

[Jaes]

Unlike Arcade Battles, WEP is virtually unlimited with some exceptions. The primary con to WEP is it will cook your engine and cause a decrease in engine performance over time, but these days, most Air RB battles don't last long enough for that to be a concern (RIP 60 minute RB Battles).

You can burn out your engine if you sustain WEP for too long, which is naturally a problem, but there's conditions in which you can use it indefinitely depending on the cooling system of your aircraft.

Air cooled aircraft can be in WEP for long periods of time if you're at higher altitudes where the air is much cooler, but have a habit of overheating quickly at lower altitudes as a result. Liquid cooled (Oil/Water) aircraft can sustain WEP longer at low altitudes, but will burn out sooner than air cooled at higher altitudes. Orange temps will start affecting your engine's endurance (the aforementioned lower performance over time) while Red will start damaging your engine and boiling your oil to the point it will cook your engine. Avoid Red as much as possible.

Some aircraft, primarily Soviet aircraft, cannot take advantage of WEP above 3000-4000m because their engines just are designed for those kinds of altitudes until much later prop variants in their tech tree. Others may only be able to deploy WEP for a certain amount of time (I don't recall which ones off hand unfortunately).

US Aircraft easily have the best overall WEP performance in terms of cooling and endurance and air fairly easy to manage. German aircraft by comparison need careful micromanagement of the engine to ensure you're not cooking your engine.

A little tip to help prolonging your engine endurance in a dogfight: Whenever your going into a dive, disengage WEP, this will give your engine a precious few seconds to cool down a bit before you re-engage WEP if you're going into a climb/hard turn that you want to maintain energy.

[Capitán Alatriste]

Originally posted by Jaes:

Air cooled aircraft can be in WEP for long periods of time if you're at higher altitudes where the air is much cooler, but have a habit of overheating quickly at lower altitudes as a result. Liquid cooled (Oil/Water) aircraft can sustain WEP longer at low altitudes, but will burn out sooner than air cooled at higher altitudes. Orange temps will start affecting your engine's endurance (the aforementioned lower performance over time) while Red will start damaging your engine and boiling your oil to the point it will cook your engine. Avoid Red as much as possible. .

huh, interesting, so everytime the temp meter goes to yellow/orange the engine performance will worsen, or is it just if sustained?

[Eftwyrd]

Originally posted by Capitán Alatriste:

Originally posted by Jaes:

Air cooled aircraft can be in WEP for long periods of time if you're at higher altitudes where the air is much cooler, but have a habit of overheating quickly at lower altitudes as a result. Liquid cooled (Oil/Water) aircraft can sustain WEP longer at low altitudes, but will burn out sooner than air cooled at higher altitudes. Orange temps will start affecting your engine's endurance (the aforementioned lower performance over time) while Red will start damaging your engine and boiling your oil to the point it will cook your engine. Avoid Red as much as possible. .

huh, interesting, so everytime the temp meter goes to yellow/orange the engine performance will worsen, or is it just if sustained?

just if sustained

if you go even further and use manual engine controls WEP becomes an interesting ballancing act of trying to control temperatures by opening your radiator further, but opening your radiator increases drag. For something like climbing fully open radiator and more power wins out but in a gravity assisted dive closing the radiator and throttling back to prevent your engine from cooking itself can get you a little more speed