Flying and Skip Bombing the Blenheim on Cockpit Instruments

[ElAurens]

You using FRAPS for screen shots?

[jimbop]

Originally Posted by ElAurens

You using FRAPS for screen shots?

No, the steam interface. You can choose a screenshot key in Settings, In-Game tab as below. Mine is Scroll Lock. A window with the screenshots from that sessions appears when you exit the game.

[ElAurens]

Hmmm...

I could never get that to work for me.

[jimbop]

Originally Posted by ElAurens

Hmmm...

I could never get that to work for me.

Doesn't work at the CoD interface, only after you click Fly. I suspect it has something to do with the activation of the full screen mode when you start flying.

[ElAurens]

Well I just flew online and tried the STEAM screen shot thingy.

No joy.

It has never worked for me.

I'll just have to remember to start FRAPS next time.

[jimbop]

Oh well, nothing wrong with fraps. I'm using MSI afterburner for video and it also has screen capture.

[Blackdog_kt]

Originally Posted by ElAurens

I spent some time offline in the Blenheim tonight.

Owing to the fact that the one mission where it starts on the ground is bugged, I used it in the London sight seeing mission. Flew from London to Manston, then across to Calais, then down to Le Havre where I landed.

At least I had some flight time (1 hour 21 minutes) learning in flight engine management, etc...

Only issue is that the mission starts you with 100% fuel, and I could not lower it. Basically ran 2000rpm and 2 odd psi boost most of the time. Was indicating +/- 170mph most of the time between 8000 and 9000 ft. The flight reminded me of the time I flew second seat in a twin engined Piper on a trip to and from Chicago Midway from Toledo Express. (No, I'm not a real pilot, but my employer at that time had 2 US Air National Guard jet jocks on staff as salesmen, and they would fly me to location shoots... They knew I liked planes so I got to do a lot of the flying...).

It's a fairly docile bird. And I see that some of it's qualities as stated in the Pilot's Notes are actually modeled fairly well.

Now I just have to try to get it off the ground in a combat situation and drop some HE on Jerry.

That's the spirit mate

She handles quite nice and can even be thrown around somewhat. I practiced some bombing in the mission made by ATAG_Dutch and decided to copy Jimbop's split-S evasion technique: open cowl flaps fully, boost cut-out on, +9 boost and roll over. I think i must have hit close to never exceed speed, because i was doing 320mph and it was creaking by the time i leveled off above the waves

Of course, you can't maintain that boost for long, but imagine my surprise (and joy) when i realized that i could keep her going at +4.5 with the cowl flaps half open for the rest of the trip and temps safely at 200 degrees, doing a steady 230mph indicated on the deck.

I think it does need fixing, but once you get down how the effects of airflow/cooling are modeled you can get get the most out of it even in its current state. You just need to be going reasonably fast and after that all goes better: you need less opened cowl flaps, closing them gives you a bit of a climb, you trim it out and you go even faster, etc, up until you reach the maximum in a perfect equilibrium for your current boost settings.

The difficult part is getting enough speed on the runway to get some cooling airflow before the temps creep up to you, the rest of the flight is mostly fine.

Yesterday i did it a different way than usual and it worked fine, i had temps at 150 aligning with the runway and some leftover speed from taxiing, so i just gave it +2 boost and let her roll. The tendency to yaw right was completely negated by full left rudder trim at this boost setting (in fact i was even sliding to the left a bit) and it was picking up speed nicely. So much in fact that i completely forgot to advance throttle the rest of the way

I only pushed it to +5 when i saw it couldn't get off the runway easily and did a double-take on my instruments.

This made me reevaluate my method and now i think it's better to advance throttle in stages during the take off run. This does two things for you:

1) Gets you up to 70 mph with only +2 boost, which means manageable yaw tendencies and safe temps (provided the cowl flaps are open).

2) Let's you start rolling from a lower initial temp. The engines won't sputter at 150-170 degrees if you just give it +1 to +2 boost, then you have enough airflow to push it up to +5 gradually and warm them up as you are rolling.

Much better than aligning, warming up to 200 degrees and then firewalling it like i used to do.

As for the IAS/TAS thing now...there is an atmosphere model in the sim but we don't know its parameters. I assume the conversion table in the manual refers to the ISA (international standard atmosphere) model, but i can't be sure. However, up until 5000 feet there is not much to change.

Roughly speaking, you'll be doing 170-200mph during the bomb run and flying between 100 and 5000 ft. I took a look at the conversion table, compared the numbers and used a simple "divide in the middle" approach for the intermediate values that are not covered in the table. The general rule of thumb for these airspeeds seem to be: "add 10mph to get TAS if flying at 3000 ft or, add 10mph if flying at 5000ft or so". Of course, when on the deck you just drop like a fighter does.

Not entirely precise but:
a) i can't easily make out targets higher than 5000-6000ft from a sufficient range to properly align with them, due to my somewhat medium detail settings (land detail on medium, so the range of high detail terrain around me is not that much)
b) i can't aim accurately enough to go higher than 5k ft
c) staying between 3000-5000 limits the amount of time my approximation/error will have an effect on the bomb's trajectory.

All in all, pretty sound and since i release manually with a bit of an interval between bombs, i'm bound to hit something. That's also the reason i prefer 4x250lb instead of 2x500lb, more chances of scoring a hit.

[jimbop]

Originally Posted by Blackdog_kt

This made me reevaluate my method and now i think it's better to advance throttle in stages during the take off run. This does two things for you:

1) Gets you up to 70 mph with only +2 boost, which means manageable yaw tendencies and safe temps (provided the cowl flaps are open).

2) Let's you start rolling from a lower initial temp. The engines won't sputter at 150-170 degrees if you just give it +1 to +2 boost, then you have enough airflow to push it up to +5 gradually and warm them up as you are rolling.

Much better than aligning, warming up to 200 degrees and then firewalling it like i used to do.

This is exactly the conclusion I arrived at during today's flying - was going to post something similar. I don't think I'll bother making a new video until after the patch since the modelling might change but I find this a foolproof way of getting off the ground now.

I am actually quite happy with the model. Still needs improvement but like ElAurens said in a earlier post it is good that engine cooling actually has an effect. I'm going to have some fun in this one!

[Feathered_IV]

Originally Posted by ATAG_Dutch

Try this mission out for practice Feathered and El. I made it myself in FMB with 50% fuel from the word go. If the engines make an uncomfortable rattling sound, just throttle back slightly, wait a couple of secs then try again.
You can't alter fuel load in a quick mission yet I don't think.
The mission is my level bombing practice mission, but should be ok for engine practice.

Thanks Dutch. I did mangage to get the Blenheim into the air last night using a simple mission I made in FMB. Yours looks like a lot of fun and I'm looking forward to giving it a go too. Cheers!

[ATAG_Dutch]

Originally Posted by ElAurens

I bombed a factory building and got back in one piece. Aircraft sustained no damage, either from the enemy or my management of it.