The A2A Simulations Community

Flew in from Florida yersterday and after a night in the Mess and a little Carribean hospitality its 0500 hrs and time to get the show on the road. Thumbs up from the engineer in the Maintenance hanger that she's serviceable, refuelled and good to go, crew briefing at 0530, ETD 0600, flight time approx 10.5 hrs (phew, I'll be landing on vapours). This may take a little work. I'll post flight stats, fuel usage etc..on arrival, fingers crossed....

Graham

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The B-17G Accu-Sim will make 10.5 hours in the air easily. I've flown it beyond 12 hours in the past, hopping around the
Pacific Ocean and flights across the South Atlantic.

What you need to be mindful of is oxygen. On flights that I think will be over 8 or 9 hours in length I stay at or below 12,000'
for the first 2 hours of flight before climbing higher and going on oxygen. You could climb early but then descend early when
your oxygen gets critical on the other end but in that scenario you will need ot be mindful of the oxy state after flying for
9 hours and in a less than alert state of mind

On the flights where I have had to load the bomb bay tanks, I keep the tokyo tank valves closed and burn fuel from the
main tanks initially. Once there is enough "room" in the mains I start transferring fuel from the bomb bay tanks to the
mains in "steps"....50 gal from right BB tank to #1 tank, 50 gal from left BB tank to #4, 50 gal from right BB tank to
# 2, 50 gal from left BB tank to #3.

I repeat that procedure until the nBB tanks are empty and then jettison them, thus eliminating 900 pounds of dead weight.
Just be careful that you do not run the transfer put on a "dry" tank or you will burn it out!
The above also gives you something to do

Once the BB tanks are dropped, then I open the valves for the tokyo tanks until they are dry.

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Paul


i5-2500K @4.3Ghz OC - GA-P67A-UD7-B3 - 8GB Corsair 1600mHz

Good job guys now grab your gear and get some chow and mabye a beer, you've earned it

Arrived Azores 10.2 hrs from brakes off to engine shutdown. Quiet uneventful flight up at FL210 as she behaved beautifully, thanks Paul for the fuel and oxygen tips, you were right it gives you something to do I still managed to burn 20627 lbs of fuel but landed with a safety margain remaining (though not much) a little work still required there.
You sure have to admire the task those guys performed given the rudamentry aids available and the fact that intercontinental air travel was still being developed. I can find little information on how the ferry flights were conducted, with the exception of the routes, however I believe that time would have been critical as they would have been carrying mail, supplies and other urgent equipment so barring weather/servicability issues they would have cracked on in sucessive days till arriving at the delivery destination. Good job the B17 was such a reliable bird.
Anyway I better start planning for tomorrow hop to the African mainland (Morocco).

Graham

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In the 91st Bombardment Group (H), we have 5 "HOP" Phases. Two of which are very close to the historical
routes flown by the B-17 pilots. There are also a couple of fictitious routes.One takes you from Washington state,
across the northern USA, up through the Maritimes to Greenland, Iceland, Scotland and finally to Bassingbourn,
home of the 91st.

Another takes a southern route down to South America and across to North Africa.

The routes in the Pacific start with a flight from Hamilton Field, California, on to Honolulu and
then island-hop from there. Some very long legs on that Phase with not much to see but sea

Have a look here:

http://www.91stbombardmentgroup.com/91s ... rogram.htm

And check out the home page:

http://www.91stbombardmentgroup.com/

Paul

Thanks Paul,

Looks great and its certainly what I am looking for to enhance my B17 and flightsim experience.

Graham

Oh I completed leg 3 to Morocco this morning 5.1 hrs FL220. I sorted out my fuel usage issue (its called disabling automixture in the realism settings, "duh" default was enable but I fixed that)

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