I am no part of the team of Manfred Jahn, but I am indeed one of the Calclassics forum goers, and a long time user of their planes, so I believe I can talk with a degree of adequacy here.

What you do wrong? I'd be ready to wager my family jewels, going by what you describe, that you treat a simulated plane rigged to be used as much as possible on like the real Constellation like it was a default plane.

Read the instructions. You use ALL the attentions when managing the R-3350 in the Connies or you'll get four wrecks inside the nacelles that should house four growling powerful beasts. Starting off the engines you

MUST

manage the cowl flaps in the various stages of the take off, so not to overheat the cylinders heads; then you

MUST

keep the engines MAP pressure inside the limits of the current operational stage, so not to blow up the engines; , thing this a lot of people unused to constant speed props gets ALWAYS wrong, you

MUST

keep the suggested number of rotations per minute for the stage of the flight you're in, so not to make the engines overheat and give up the ghost in flight (flight, I may add, that won't last much longer after the engines have gone).

Not only that, everyone of those Connies has a Max operative Kias speed for the lowering and the use of flaps and gear. THAT TOO you keep in mind while flying. If you don't, you will have to make due without the equipment you wrecked in flight.

Even more, ALL the Connies have an accurate mixture control and tanks management. Nothing to do nor alike the default FS controls. You

MUST

read the instructions to use those.

Keep in mind that here I hardly can suggest you how to manage the old lady correctly, what I wrote above is only a generic guide to make you understand what one should avoid to do to get bad results. To make the old lady dance, you should really read the instructions.

If you still need help, consider subscribing to the Calclassics forum and ask in that place. Jahn and all the others are always loitering there, it's their forum.

Hi,

Controlling the engine RPM with the keyboard:

Decrease:  Ctrl-F2 (repeat as needed)
Increase:  Ctrl-F3  (repeat as needed)
Max (for takeoff):  Ctrl-F4

For the mixtures just click on the SM icon once in a while.

You can also right click on the checkmark icon and get a readout of how you are doing - green = OK, yellow = change something soon, and red = you've got damage.

You can also damage the hydraulic system by extending the gear and flaps at too high a speed - clicking the red hydraulic readout will fix that.

Hope this helps,

Cool!   Thanks for the keyboard info and the tips on the cockpit controls Tom. I had no idea what that check mark was for
  Strategic, Ain't that the truth on the keyboard F-Sim opp. That's funny you mentioned that centering problem, I have a Microsoft Wingman and can't use it cause the plane kept diving to the left nomatter how well I calibrated it. That's a bummer cause if I held it centered I could land the heck out of those planes not to mention all the other options I had at my finger tips.   Thanks Guys   -Blaze-