B17 drones not following

[Janov]

When taking off in B17-formations with heavy loads (6x1000lbs + 75% or 100% fuel) the drones have a hard time joining formation, lagging further behind at very low level, eventually exploding when they get too far away.

Litjan

[MaddogWx]

I don't think this is a bug - I fly Lancasters and sometimes B17's.  As soon as posable after take off I throttle back to let the drones catch up.  It seems reasonable that as the lead aircraft you would out run your drones on take off.  Seems to help if you don't take-off as soon as you can, your drones will actually fly over your aircraft then join.  You can put aircraft on auto-pilot and then go to rear gunner view and decrease throttle and watch them catch up.

Hope this helps

   

[rpm]

The new drone model is different. They make you work to get the drones hooked up. Wait till you try a flight of Arado's.

[MadSquirrel]

I too had problems with the B-17 drones.  

I had throttle chopped and circled to try to get them to join up.  They would seem to be getting close to formation, but as soon as I throttled up, they would lag behind, and in some cases drop altitude and of couse explode at 1000k out.  

One time, I just circled in a left hand turn at about 1000' and about 3/4 throttle then just waited.  The port drone lagged farther back and exploded.They just never really did join in formation it seems.  The starboard drone lagged behind as soon as I throttled up.  It soon feel behind, lost altitude and exploded.

Something is amiss.

LTARsqrl  

[rpm]

Here's a tip that might help. I don't raise flaps until I know the drones are in hookup. As soon as they split I raise 1 notch and wait for them to close in. I keep takeoff power the whole time. 90% of the time I get a successful formation.

[AKcurly]

Originally posted by Janov
When taking off in B17-formations with heavy loads (6x1000lbs + 75% or 100% fuel) the drones have a hard time joining formation, lagging further behind at very low level, eventually exploding when they get too far away.

Litjan

I haven't noticed the problem.  Indeed, the "follow model" in AH2 appears to be superior to AH1 to me at least.

curly

[Janov]

Well, tried Lancasters last night, same effect. I understand that I cant yank and bank in a formation, but it is highly unlikely and historically incorrect to loose bombers on takeoff on a regular basis. Even when slowing down to just above stallspeed they still struggle to catch up. The drones are needed to be effective with the new bombing model (which I love), so we need a bit of leeway here. Surely a real bomberpilot would not just go "awww, I cant seem to catch up to my leadplane, I just hang back and land again"!
I think a model is unacceptable where I have to "work hard" just to get my drones to follow me after take-off!

Litjan

[Flossy]

When I take up a formation of B17s (not tried Lancs in AH2 yet), I use manual takeoff with no flaps.  Once up in the lead bomber, I throttle back to let the drones catch up, but continue flying straight and level until they do.  In most cases the drones successfully join up, at which point I can open the throttle, engage auto-climb and start some gentle turns - I always jump to the chin gun position and steer with the rudders for all my turns, preferably from the outside view.  That way if I notice a drone start to drift, I can stop turning until it forms up again.  The outside view, combined with Pan view, is much easier for seeing what is going on than jumping into the tail gun - just swivel the view around using the keypad numbers, and make good use of the zoom keys - [ and ] after pressing Z.  

[MaddogWx]

If anyone is a Rook and having trouble getting drones up look me up on line and you can join me - I can lift Lancasters with 14k of bombs and 75% fuel from the medium and large fields no problem and from small fields if no hills around.  Comes down to selecting a good field and runway to use.  Again look me up...