Dammit! Typed this whole thing up and lost it. Retyping it now.
I spent a couple of hours testing the 10x fuel burn rate offline.
I chose a B-17 because a B-24 does everything a b17 does, only better and faster and with more gas. If a 17 can do it, a 24 can do it. A lanc has even more range than a 17 as well and should do the same as well.
Yellow is my flight path. Blue is coasting down, 2 engines below max cruise to help descent in auto-speed. Ended up with plenty of speed and made a rather hot landing without any engines running, but still quite safe.
I chose a target 2 sectors away, so I'd be 2 sectors in, 2 sectors out (about 100 miles). Only, when I as 14k over the target I still had so much flight time left I picked an even further target!.
[EDIT: "when I was over the target" -- I wasn't 14k at this time, but over 10k]
I was screwing around with the gun turrets, firing off the rounds, and wasted 5+ minutes just firing the rounds -- more later on this -- which might have helped me get home better. I as able to come around and make another pass with ease.
I took off on full throttle, and as soon as I could pull my flaps all the way up and engage autopilot (this took a couple of minutes) I reduced to "normal power," or 2300 RPM and 38" MAP. I took this all the way up during climb.
The climb rate was almost a steady 500fpm. It remained steady because as I climbed, the fuel burned off. It actually improved at higher altitudes because the aircraft was considerably lighter. In my second test, done at full throttle, I was climbing somewhat better above 10k
First test: At 15 minutes I was 8k and halfway to the target. I was about 10k at the 20 minute mark, but please note I didn't take off at zero on the clock, I had to change the fuel burn settings and choose an aircraft, a runway, a direction, a target, etc... At 25 minutes on the clock I was at 13k, and leveled off at 14k (26 minutes). At this point I had 14 minutes still remaining at "normal power". I reduced to "max cruise" after leveling out. That gave me about 20 minutes of flight time, and my target was only about 10 miles out. More than enough time to get to alt and hit a target.
On the first bomb pass I noted the max speeds on max cruise. It was 134 IAS, 167 TAS with doors open and 6 bombs on board. I dropped 3 to simulate a bombing run (missed, wasn't paying attention), and extended to turn around. I wasted a lot of time wondering if it would get lighter if I fired off some ammo, to simulate defending the bombers. Cruising speed with bombs gone was about 165 IAS.
side noteGo, Go, Gadget thruster jets!
Get in level flight. Open E6B. Get in tail gun. Fire all guns so you get as many firing as possible. Fire straight back. Note E6B. Get in nose gun. Fire ahead. Note E6B. The guns can add speed to your bomber (I am NOT making this up!!!!!). In fact, as I was gliding down, to decrease the descent rate to a gentle -200fpm, I fired my rear guns as much as I could. By this time I'd already fired off most of them playing around with this speed boost thing, but it helped while I had ammo left!!!
end side noteSo At 38 minutes on the clock I'd made 2 lengthly passes over a very distant target at a semi-safe altitude of 14k (I didn't want to get higher but I could have), at a target 3 bases behind enemy lines, and was egressing. I still had enough alt to glide down on 2 engines to save gas, and landed safely. At 43 minutes I shut down eng 1 and 4 to reduce gas consumption. When I was about 2 miles from the end of the runway my last engines conked out due to lack of fuel. I glided down easily.
Judging by the route on the map (image above) I flew 125 miles (5 sectors) at a relatively safe alt. Now if you wanted to go higher you could, it would just take more time. Perhaps if I took off East and then turned back West so I wasn't so close to my primary target I'd have hit it instead of going to the next target.
I did another test with full throttle. FYI: Full throttle gives you 30 minutes, "normal power" about 42 minutes, and "max cruise" about 50 minutes of engine running time. You can use this to your advantage. I climbed full throttle, doing about 750fpm at first, and then up to 800+ fpm later as I burned off the fuel. I leveled out at 14k again. It took much less time to get up to 15k. It took only 15 minutes to get to 15k, roughly. At that alt, I leveled out and checked the time I had at "normal power" and "cruise". I had about 12 minutes max throttle, 16 minutes normal power, and 23 minutes max cruise, and had already covered almost 2 sectors.
I think 10x fuel burn will make bombers slow down but still allow them to push into enemy front lines over a hundred miles. And if they wish to run FFT all the time, they will do so for very short durations.
EDIT: And if 10x is a bit too much, then 8x.
