A flight I will never forget

A Living Legend
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Joe_A
Airman Basic
Posts: 4
Joined: 23 Jul 2017, 02:13

A flight I will never forget

Post by Joe_A »

Good morning, My name is Joe I would like to share a recent experience with all of you and express my deep gratitude for such an amazing product. I am a member of http://macairvirtual.com/ One of our tours replicates flights from WWII done in the Pacific theater. The first leg of the tour is Departure Airport: Point Mugu Naval Air Station (Naval Base Ventura Co) (KNTD) Arrival Airport: Wheeler Army Airfield (PHHI). Est flight time was 12hrs at a distance just shy of 2200nm. There were 4 pilots in our group. 2 of us flying the A2A B17. The weather was not looking too favorable for our flight. We had a constant headwind from 10kts to 20kts. My B17 wingman and I both insured we took off with our fuel loads at max capacity. As we reached our cruising alt of FL250. We realized the winds were going to play havoc with our fuel endurance. My wingman and I estimated we had just enough fuel to make it but we knew it was going to be very close.

About 6 hours into the flight. We began to realize how " alive " these aircraft are. We did our best to follow the manual but as with any aircraft, problems do occur. The first major issue was experienced by my wingman. He began to have a high manifold pressure reading on Eng 2. This condition was worsening so he decided to shut down Eng 2. The observed fuel savings with maintaining cruising speed was enough to convince me to also shut down Eng 2. Well, my crew was not happy. It was then I realized the heater core uses Eng 2 exhaust. At FL250 it was very cold. So to keep them happy I attempted to relight Eng 2. This is when I ran into my first major issue. I was unable to restart Eng 2. After 20 min of troubleshooting, I finally got it running and all seemed well. I shut down Eng 3 to continue to save fuel.

10 hours into the flight we ran into another issue. Both of our aircraft were now low on o2. So we both were forced to descend leading us to another issue. The winds aloft we calculated was for FL250 not FL100. So despite our attempts to save fuel we still were cutting it very close.

At about 12 hours into the flight, we ran into another issue. We both had the bomb bay tanks on the aircraft. But we both failed to realize these tanks needed to be transferred into the main tanks with the pumps this does not happen automatically. So A2As level of detail bit us again. Because we were low on fuel and air was present in the transfer lines. Fuel was not able to be moved out of the Aux tanks. At this point 12+ hours of flying, we resorted to using the payload manager to move the fuel. Yes, we cheated but I'm sure you all understand why.

As my wingman and I approached the Hawaii coastline we were relieved but terrified at the same time. our fuel levels were at critical levels. He was worst off than I. On final he lost engine 1 ( engine 2 was already offline due to a mechanical issue ) With some great piloting he was able to land and on the rollout he lost engines 3 and 4. I was about 30 min behind him. I had all 4 engines online for the approach. But this was short lived as on final I lost engines 2 and 3. I was able to park with only about 100 gal left in the tanks for engines 1 and 4.

So what is the take away for all of this and why am I sharing this long story.

I wanted to document that this IS "living" aircraft and how grateful I am for A2A for making such an amazing product. Not only did two pilots take off and fly the same exact flight but we had two totally different experiences and challenges. As it turns our my wingman had a cylinder fail in engine 2 which caused the high manifold pressure. As for my engine problems, I believe I flooded the engine which prevented me from restarting it in flight. I had detonation damage when it was inspected after landing.

A2A, Thank you for the amazing experience, Below I will share a few photos of the flight. We have a few more long legs so looking forward to the challenge and will now be better prepared for them!

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alan CXA651
Senior Master Sergeant
Posts: 2438
Joined: 15 Mar 2016, 08:23

Re: A flight I will never forget

Post by alan CXA651 »

Hi Joe.
I fly for CXA vitual with A2A C172/connie and A2A B17,P51,P47,P40 MAAM SIM B25 , manfred jahn C47 for the 91st bombardment group , we recreate ww2 bomb runs , and a hop programe in 5 phases and a 135 flights in the hops , + iron man , we did a 4 ship route on hop 88 this saturday gone from PKWA to PGUA .
Phase hops 1 to 3 covering hops 1 to 84 , gets you promoted in rank , you start as sargeant on completion of each phase you apply for promotion , you start in a sqd provisional paint , at the end of phase 1 you place your name against a paint scheme thats free in your sqd, at the end phase 2 you can then fly your chosen paint , at the end phase 3 you end as 1st lt , promotion after that depends on the ammount of flying you do and at discretion of the head of the 91st.
I joined this group on the 23rd dec 2016 , i am now a vCol in charge of the 324th , membership is by invitation , if you wish to join , you apply to join then wait to be invited in then you proceed in the joining process , we fly on JOINFS which is a free to use service , and allows FSX/FSXSE/P3DV3/4 users to fly together.
We also have a pilot training programe , that teaches how to fly in formation , join formation , swap positions , ectra.
regards alan. 8) :lol:
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Gypsy Baron
A2A Master Mechanic
Posts: 3396
Joined: 02 Aug 2008, 17:04
Location: San Francisco

Re: A flight I will never forget

Post by Gypsy Baron »

Nice report on that flight Joe.

On the A2A B-17G fuel transfer:

On long hops with bomb bay tanks, as soon as there is room in each of the main tanks for 60 gallons of fuel I begin transferring fuel from the BB tanks to the main/aux tanks.

My procedure is to xfer 55 gal from the right BB tank to Eng 1 tank, then 55 gal from the left BB tank to the Eng 4 tank, then right BB to Engine 2 and left BB to Eng 3....55 gal each.

That 'evens' the BB tank levels off at 300 gal per BB tank. I then cruise for a bit until there is room for another 50 gal in each engines tank, then I do the R BB -> Eng1, L BB -> Eng 4, etc....50 gal each transfer.

After two more cycles the BB tanks will be empty and, much to the chagrin of my crew chief and the AAF, I jettison the BB tanks to get rid of 600 lbs of dead weight.

Each 50 gal transfer takes about 3 min 20 seconds I recall so I set a kitchen timer to alert me when it is time to shut down the pump and change 'direction'.

BEWARE of running the pump from an EMPTY tank or you will burn it out and thus losing the ability to transfer and use any remaining BB tank fuel.

Also, I use the pump to balance out the fuel load between tanks whenever there is a difference of more that 5 or 10 gallons between tanks.

And in the event of an engine failure, you can pump the fuel from the dead engine's tank to spread it between the remaining engine tanks.

I've made the Hamilton Field -> Hickam Field flight many times and have never had to 'ditch'.

I belong to the 91st Bombardment Group and as Alan mentioned above, we have a Hop Program that takes us across the US, the North and South Atlantic and all over the Pacific. Managing resources on long hops is essential to insure a safe arrival.

I currently have over 1900 hours on my air frame and #3 engine. Engines 1,2 & 4 have 1893, 1741 and 1896 hours on them, so I have spent a bit of time in the A2A B-17G :)

Paul

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Lewis - A2A
A2A Lieutenant Colonel
Posts: 33284
Joined: 06 Nov 2004, 23:22
Location: Norfolk UK
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Re: A flight I will never forget

Post by Lewis - A2A »

Beautiful story, sounds like a wicked fun flight you had, thanks very much for sharing with the community here. Glad to hear you enjoying the sim so much.

cheers,
Lewis
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