Level bombing in the Blenheim

[jimbop]

Originally Posted by ElAurens

So you can take off 100% of the time without blowing an engine?

For sure. Warm up with rads closed, no carb heater until ~160 degrees. Open rads, full left trim and throttle up to slow taxi for runway alignment (probably need a spot of brakes now and then). Temps 190. Open throttles to about 70%, build speed, wheels up. Throttle down and cut prop back to coarse.

You will be doing 120 mph max so stay level until 150. Close rads to 60% when temps fall to 210 (about 30 sec at this speed if that) then start climbing.

The risky bit is fine pitch (high rpm) without good airflow. This will cook your cylinder head very fast (I think faster than realistic) so move to coarse as soon as you can after takeoff. After you have cooled down you can fiddle the coarse prop pitch to increase from 1600 to 2000 between coarse and fine and climb all day.

What threw me for a while was the awful engine sounds when increasing boost. I thought it was too hot but turns out it was too cold! Curse the designer who thought that was a good spot for cylinder head gauges...

Certainly not a perfect model and should not be that sensitive to temp but it is still flyable. And if I can do it I'm damn sure you can. I had some fun with the HE111 and tank targets on ATAG #2 last night! Well, until the flak had fun with me...

[Hooters2]

Agree with jimbop, his routine sounds the same as mine. It was a struggle to start off with but now no problem at all, you can scream in pretty quick for a skip bombing attack and the temps stay quite stable. As with many things it's when you change configuration, take off to climb, climb to cruise etc that you have to be careful. I like the Blenheim a lot.

[ElAurens]

Well, at least we finally have radials that can get too cold, unlike IL2 where you had to have the cowl flaps open all the time at any speed.