B-29 full fuel & 40 500#ers takeoff wreck

[RotBaron]

Asking for tips on how not to wreck on takeoff with full fuel and the heavy load of 40 500's...

The field I tried to takeoff from was 5.9 alt and looked flat for ~500yds after runway. I wrecked twice on takeoff due to small bumps after runway I noticed after inspecting the field later in a jeep.

I tried taking off with full flaps and wep on from start the first time and no input on the stick.

The 2nd try I didn't deploy any flaps until I was fully rolling with wep on. Toward the end of the runway I pulled up on the stick but the tail hit the ground and broke off.


~180 perks --->poof


I believe the base is 179 on the huge map, NE spawn...

[FLS]

Do you need full fuel?

[RotBaron]

Actually in this case I may have...It was going to be necessary to fly across the entire map to reach the strats and I wasn't sure 75% was going to be enough, that is why I chose 100%

[Lusche]

1) Inspect the field with F5 & F8 from the tower, much better overview than driving around in a jeep
2) Ideally select a coastal field with a clear path over sea
3) Retract your flaps at spawn. Give full power and WEP and deploy flaps (1 or 2 notches at most) only at the end of the runway
4) Don't force it by pulling back on the stick. If that's really necessary at takeoff, you selected the wrong base in the first place.
6) With maximum T/O weight, lower bases are better than higher ones. The bonus of high alt bases is totally overrated at high alt long range bomber sorties.
7) When in doubt test takeoff from the base in OFFLINE mode. If you are going to spend 2h in a bomber sortie, don't save on the 5 minutes such a test will take.

[Hap]

test takeoff from the base in OFFLINE mode. If you are going to spend 2h in a bomber sortie, don't save on the 5 minutes such a test will take.

   

[Babalonian]

Don't forget, the single runway at a small airfield is only about as long as the shortest runway you'll find at a medium or large airfield (*hint*).

[RotBaron]

Thanks for the info and suggestion re: offline, great idea and will do that next time.

I don't think there are many cases where I'll try 100% fuel again, however, I had a lot of work I was going to go AFK and do, with the wind now I was going to check back about every half hour and correct my course. But, I've had the situation twice that I recall with a B-29 where I took 50% and had to make all kinds of adjustments to my plan to make it to the nearest base. I'll 

Babalonian: I said the same thing the other nite, but iirc AKAK said that is not the case, that all airfield's runways are the same length. AckAck, that was you, correct?

[Babalonian]

O'rly...  Two stories and the truth, so check it out yourself; a quick n dirty test is to fire up a jeep, go to one end of a runway, floor it for the opposite end and time your run.

[fuzeman]

This is another one of those times when the teachers were right when they said you would need math some day.
We have square airfields basically.
Lets use that funny three sided thingy, a triangle.
We wont bother with isoscelese, equilateral or any of that higher level stuff.
You have two short sides and a long side.
You take the two short sides and put them on two edges of the field, with the ends of them touching.
The long side then connects to those and forms our funny triangle.
Still with us???
[ pausing a minute to let you decide. ]

Now a short side is the same length as the runway that goes from the middle of each side of the field to the other midpoint.
On a large field that would be the two runways that make an X .
And it follows, hopefully, that the long side of the triangle, note long, corresponds to the diagonal runway.
Still with us???
[ pausing another minute to let you decide. ]

Question- Are all AH runways the same length?
With a followup- Which runway do you think is the longest?

[Kingpin]

This is another one of those times when the teachers were right when they said you would need math some day.
We have square airfields basically.

Question- Are all AH runways the same length?
With a followup- Which runway do you think is the longest?

In other words, the diagonal (corner to corner) runways should be about 1.4 times longer than the central (N-S, E-W) runways.  Provided they form a right triangle and you believe Pythagoras (or your geometry teacher).

 

[SIK1]

1) Inspect the field with F5 & F8 from the tower, much better overview than driving around in a jeep
2) Ideally select a coastal field with a clear path over sea
3) Retract your flaps at spawn. Give full power and WEP and deploy flaps (1 or 2 notches at most) only at the end of the runway
4) Don't force it by pulling back on the stick. If that's really necessary at takeoff, you selected the wrong base in the first place.
6) With maximum T/O weight, lower bases are better than higher ones. The bonus of high alt bases is totally overrated at high alt long range bomber sorties.
7) When in doubt test takeoff from the base in OFFLINE mode. If you are going to spend 2h in a bomber sortie, don't save on the 5 minutes such a test will take.

Lusche, I'm curious as to why you would retract your flaps. A notch or two would help with attaining sufficient lift at a lower airspeed. Would they not? I know in the real world flaps are used for take offs, especially on the heavies.

According to this War Department training film (http://www.zenoswarbirdvideos.com/B-29.html) the flaps should be set to 25* for take off. And to all those people that want AH to be more realistic in engine management watch the film and see everything that is involved just to get a B-29 in the air.

Thanks to Zeno's for the film. If you haven't visited Zeno's you should. They are a wealth of knowledge on everything having to do with WWII aircraft.

[Lusche]

Lusche, I'm curious as to why you would retract your flaps. A notch or two would help with attaining sufficient lift at a lower airspeed. Would they not? I know in the real world flaps are used for take offs, especially on the heavies.

3) Retract your flaps at spawn. Give full power and WEP and deploy flaps (1 or 2 notches at most) only at the end of the runway

As you can see, I advise to use the flaps at takeoff, just not during the initial accelleration phase where they just add drag. Of course, this is not the procedure what I would recommend to anyone flying a real B-29. 

[SIK1]

3) Retract your flaps at spawn. Give full power and WEP and deploy flaps (1 or 2 notches at most)only at the end of the runway

Yep I missed that in the first read.

Getting a full up B-29 off the ground and climbing is not an easy thing as I have discovered. My most successful attempts were at A1 in the TA taking off to the SW 100% fuel, 40, 500 lbrs, and the big gun package. Fortunately the ground drops away from the base at the end of the runway. I tried several attempts at a sea level base and could not clear the small obstructions at the end of the runway no matter what configuration I tried.

Not sure why anyone would need that much fuel as in the TA it is 326 minutes at 3k alt. That would be 163 minutes in the main arenas with a 2.0 burn multiplier, or darn near three hours at just above sea level.

[Lusche]

Not sure why anyone would need that much fuel as in the TA it is 326 minutes at 3k alt. That would be 163 minutes in the main arenas with a 2.0 burn multiplier, or darn near three hours at just above sea level.

For an efficient usage of that much bomb load, you easily get towards those numbers.

Allow me a word on loadout selection first:
 guess most occasional B-29 pilots simply chose the 40x500 loadout because it's the larges one in terms of mass and destruction. Only to waste all that awesome power by totally over saturating a target area.
For many sorties, a different and potentially much lighter loadout makes much more sense if you bomb with your head, not your butt. A pilot using the 12x1k loadout for factories AND city, or the 8x2k for factories or the 56x250lb for the City alone and bombing with precision instead of carpeting, will have a much lighter plane with less climb and transit time.

If you take the 40x500lb loadout (or the 56x250 one), you will have to make a lot of passes over the target to make full use of that number of bombs. In this case, 100% may be very well justified. Especially as with the 40x500 loadout you need a lot of time to reach high altitudes (75 minutes to 30.1k from sea level).
The other case coming to my mind is when attacking retreated strats on a huge map like compello. (Such a mission resulted in my longest bomber sortie so far: Compello, 12x1k, attacking retreated strats in the west, total mission time 2 hours 50 minutes.)


Generally, I took 75% for all my strat raids except for the 40x500 loadout (rarely chosen) and the 56x250 loadout, both at 100% fuel.  For a strat attack, 50% can suddenly become a mighty tight budget if you got a fuel tank hit and a couple of Ta 152Hs are following you home...

[Babalonian]

I do the same, in a nut:

Clean/no flaps = slightly faster acceleration = faster achievement of minimum TO speeds = slightly less runway length required = a BFD when talking about lifting heavy B-29s.  You'll need the flaps to take off, but not to achieve TO-speed.

You then must be careful to not use too much flaps or loose that speed you've been gaining, as the flap deployment will pop you up off the runway if done right, but the higher your pop/rise the more speed you just lost.