Actually, One Val does exist!

Yes, and it's not far from me:

http://www.planesoffame.org/index.ph...ation-projects

Well that just made my day mate! :grin:

Hey all first time posting in here figured I would check out were the SoW was at. I use to have a website on the Stuka it was stukaguide.com a long time ago. The Bomb was guided by the arm it did not stay on the arm once the arm lowered into position the bomb was released. One thing I will tell you about the Stuka that no other plane had at the time was a radio altimeter this would shoot a radio wave to the ground and it would bounce back and tell you how far you were from the ground it was the first of its kind and it was what made the auto pullout possible. This meant no matter where the ground was from sea level the Stuka would release and pull out at a set distance from the ground not sea. There were two settings on the Radio altimeter one for a buzzer to let the pilot know when to release the bomb and the other was when it would release the bomb and pull out by itself in case the pilot was knocked out from the dive. At pull out the trim would pull the plane out. Before the dive the pilot would set supercharger to first position, set trim to neutral trim(elevator and rudder), close radiator, set flaps to neutral, throttle back, turn on siren, and the act of extending the dive brakes would put the plane into a controlled stall nose down into the dive.The pilot would have to open radiator full and throttle up slowly so the torque would not turn the plane over and retrim the plane for level flight or as one stuka pilot I talked to the Get the Hell out of there setting. ;)

Now that is useful information! Thanks a lot:grin: I didn't even know about the radio altimeter;)

+1

I knew PoF had a D3A but I had no idea the restoration was proceeding so well. Here's hoping the Goodwin Sands Do17Z salvage/restoration will have the same result!

Cheers and thanks LukeFF for the link,

Fafnir_6

In Il-2 the Bf-110 has a radio-altimeter which only goes to 750 meters I think (usefull for night landings).

I'm not so sure that technology was present in early Stukas at least. However, it doesn't really need a radio altimeter. Prior to the bomb run, the pilot can set the bomb release altitude, taking the height of the ground above sea level into account (assuming he made a flight plan of his mission :grin:) . This function is modeled in IL-2, and is indicated by a red cursor on the altimeter which is moved with "Increase bomb-sight altitude" and "Decrease bomb-sight altitude" keys.

Extending the air-brake activates the automatic system (For me this is "A"). When the airplane's altitude falls below the red line, the bombs will release automatically, and the pull out is initiated.

You can set this altitude to 0 meters if you want total control of when the bombs are released, but I try to release BEFORE the altitude indicator reaches the red cursor. I set the cursor to a minimum of 750 meters AGL to ensure that I'm not trimming hedges and catching flak :) If the bombs release before I'm ready, then so be it - I have a much better chance of surviving.

You are correct about setting the meters but the radio altimeter is what they are setting in the Stuka not sure about the IL2 all I know is the Stuka was the first plane ever to have this technology. I have talked to 7 different Stuka pilots and all of them said they remember the radio altimeter since the first one most of them flew which was the B-2. I still have one of the emails from one of the pilots and here is what he wrote about the Radio Altimeter.

{It was an antenna under the fuselage would shoot radio waves straight down to the ground and it would then bounce back and tell you how far from the ground you were. The Radio Altimeter shows up to 5km and has two needles one was set for the automatic pull out which was around 450m-750m from the Ground and the other showed how high you were from the ground not Sea level when both needles came together a warning horn would sound letting the pilot know when to release the bombs, after the bombs were released the automatic pullout would engage making the plane nose up without the pilot touching the controls.}

Here you go I found my old website from the archive I had the same guy tell me what every part that was in the cockpit and what it did. I used it in the instrument layout page. There was a couple he could not remember and I could not find what they did in the actual manual. http://web.archive.org/web/200306280...sturments.html