recreate b17 ferry flight to hawaii

[alan CXA651]

Hi.
Today within a few minutes , i am going to start the ferry flight from hamilton to phnl /hickam recreating the flight that flew unarmed into the pearl harbour attack.
Will be twitching t/o and landing or ditching , expecting a flight of between 11.5 to 12 hrs duration , and if i get the power setting wrong i could end up with not enough fuel , or fumes when or if i get to hickam.
Regards alan.

[bmbrzmn101]

Happy tailwinds!!

Chris


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[alan CXA651]

Hi.
3 HRS into trip alt 14000ft headwinds , all eng inst normal , but eng has problems , vibration in airframe , eng 3 using more oil , no signs of oil smoke from eng keeping close eye on it bombay fuel gone , its going to be tight on fuel, now 4.30 am.
Regards alan.

[alan CXA651]

Hi.
Now 4hrs into trip , eng 3 still running but giving cause for concern , headwinds at 18000ft reducing speed to 163 now 5.35am , all inst reading normal , but vibration on eng3 , tells me something is wrong , constant changes in wind direction , means constant course corrections , going by map , i might be at point of no return.
fuel qty 11444lbs endurance should be about 6.5hrs.
regasrds alan.

[alan CXA651]

Hi.
Time 6.45am dawn has raisen, cockpit lights turned off , taken a look outside at indivdual eng cowls for vibration , eng 3 confirmed as vibrating more than rest , also as i was looking at engs 3/4 spoted a puff of oily smoke from eng 3 , something definatly giving out , but all gauges still reading normal at this time.
Fuel on board 9329 lbs tokyo 2/3 empty tokyo 1/4 96 gal between them , range about 1000nm endurance about 5.5hrs.
regards alan.

[alan CXA651]

Hi.
time 09.55am headwinds have not been kind , strong winds at phnl according to atis , hyd fluid at 49% , gly 52% eng oil 1/2 at 74% eng 4 oil at 76% eng 3 oil at 68% need to carry out fuel transfer soon to equal eng tanks , thinking of shutting down eng 3 and use fuel for the good engines , but dont want to do that to soon.
Fuel in tanks l to r 197/144/142/197 hawaii about 600nm away.
alt 13341ft oxy 100 , will need to decend to between 10000/12000ft soon.
regards alan.

[BarryR]

Hi.
time 09.55am headwinds have not been kind , strong winds at phnl according to atis , hyd fluid at 49% , gly 52% eng oil 1/2 at 74% eng 4 oil at 76% eng 3 oil at 68% need to carry out fuel transfer soon to equal eng tanks , thinking of shutting down eng 3 and use fuel for the good engines , but dont want to do that to soon.
Fuel in tanks l to r 197/144/142/197 hawaii about 600nm away.
alt 13341ft oxy 100 , will need to decend to between 10000/12000ft soon.
regards alan.

I hope we dont call you Amelia Alan...!!!

[alan CXA651]

Hi.
ASN conspired against me , i failed to get to phnl due severe high winds , at one point i seemed to be stationary for two hours going by the map , then about 300nm from phnl it was giving reasonable winds but varying directions , which i have seen many times at phnl , but for most part seemed to be a steady 60 deg , giving a choice of runways 4 or 8 , also when i was transfering fuel from tokyo tanks to tanks 1/4 and 2/3 feeder tanks , i forgot to shut the valves , thinking once the tanks the tokyos where feeding into where full , the transfer would stop , and i think i lost a lot of valuable fuel here, also eng 3 was giving a lot of vibrations , and i saw a puff of oily smoke belch out once , which i assumed was a cyclinder going , but all eng inds was normal, i deliberatly transfered fuel away from eng 3 to give more fuel to engs1/2 and 4 , as i was getting close to fumes , about 140nm from hawaii , eng 3 was shut down , and featherd, looking at fuel going down on the remaining 3 engs , i knew for the gailforce winds , and heavy clouds , that asn wipped up out of nowhere , i was going to be lucky if i made phng , which was dead ahead , took over manual flight , and decended below clouds , saw the runway at phng , got gear / flaps down , on 3 engs out of the four , started approach , then message from copilot , ENG 2 QUIT SIR /ENG1 QUIT SIR/ENG4 QUIT SIR, and yes my hands where everywhere , feathering one eng after another , looked like i could not glide in , so raised flaps to help glide in , landed on runway,applied brakes , as hard as i could , aircraft started slowing down , looked as though it was going to stop, then for some reason , the aircraft lifted off the runway , and no chance of stopping her before the sea came at me at the end of the runway.
ALL fUEL TANKS EMPTY/gly at 38% hyd at 31% eng oils from l to r 67/68/62/69 .
In the hanger both gears and gear motor shot,as was eng 3 and left tyre , right tyre worn,everything repaired and all engiines overhauled.
Had asn given half decent winds and had i not screwed up on the tokyo fuel transfer , i might have stood a chance.

https://www.twitch.tv/cxa651/v/96862049

regards alan.

[BarryR]

I cnt seem to watch your videos...I wonder if its blocker on my end....

[Jacques]

Hi Alan,

That's a pretty long reach on a good day so you can take some confidence in doing as well as you did with the conditions and issues you encountered.

Next attempt, take a look at the winds aloft forecast and don't be shy about staying low if that is what the winds are telling you. A quick look this afternoon had the best winds between 5000 and 10000, with just one small patch (read several hundred nm of winds from the sw at 35 knots. Compare that to 24,000' and fighting 70 + knot headwinds most of the journey. ( These being the current 24 hr forecast, in case you're game for another attempt tomorrow! )

[alan CXA651]

Hi Jacques.
The best winds yesterday was 24000ft at 5knt head , getting up there , ment going through headwinds of 40/50 knts , then at one point my enroute atis stopped giveing updates , so i was on my own , then for two hrs i seemed to be at a standstill , i can only guess at the headwinds at that point , but at point of no return , it could not have happened at a worse time , then when transfering fuel from tokyo tanks , which going by the rightup , could be left on , this seemed to getr rid of some fuel , yet it should not have , anyhow , aircraft has 4 new overhauled engines with zero hours , so i should have at least 4 good engines for trip , instead of one bad troublesome one.
regards alan.
P.S. she dont glide very far , even with props feathered.

[alan CXA651]

Hi.
Just fired everything up to try this flight again , but no atis , shut everything down including pc and rebooting everything.
Regards alan.
UPDATE:-ENDED UP LOADING TRIKE getting it in position , then starting b17 by changing aircraft , as prior to this i kept getting a message to do with missing wav , i think the aircraft crash yesterday upset something , anyhow , trying again , metars for route was not good , best was 12000ft at 36knt headwind , so trying to keep to 10000ft , in hope of more fav winds , else i wont get there , departed hamilton at 2.30am loc , see how i do this time.
regards alan.

[alan CXA651]

Hi.
My second attempt , was going smoothe , i was in the process of transfering fuel , from bombbay to 2/3 feeder tanks , at loc time 5.35am , when co-pilot chirps up capt we have eng temps high , seeing as he was controlling the cowlflaps/intercoolers , i thought whats going on , quick glance of eng inst , showed eng 4 had high manifold press, retarded eng 4 throttle , almost to idle , to get manifold back to the same position as rest of engs , looking at rest of eng inst makes me think we have a wastegate problem , we are over 500nm from hamilton , so i could return if need be , but being stuborn i am plodding on for now , but this means i will need to shut this engine down , prior to landing , but now i have a serious fuel ballanceing act , as eng 4 will not use as much fuel as rest , but it is producing some power for now.
regards alan.

[Gypsy Baron]

You do know that you can easily balance fuel loads with the pump that you used to transfer bomb bay tank contents. On long (10 - 12 hour flights) I do that often to keep each tank within a few gallons of each other.

Paul

[Lewis - A2A]

Great job, I caught some of the streams when I can. Looks like quite the legs your doing

cheers,
Lewis