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

[RotBaron]

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?

KP I don't believe it would be the "diagonal" runway, but as math was never my thing, maybe I've misunderstood some inputs.  Diagonal is probably better stated as parallel and parallel to what. If the hypotenuse (longest side) is the side placed on one side of the theoretical box surrounding any airfield then the longest runway would always be the one that parallels the hypotenuse. Or better stated, the long runway parallels any side of the box. That should then be the the n-s & e-w runways, provided the runway length touches the corners of the box.  Correct?

Babalon: your test would work as well, but I don't have a stopwatch, with a minute hand I could only arrive at results with +/-, do you have a stopwatch?

Edit: now I have remember what a medium field looks like, have to go find the maps.

Further edit: now I'm all confused, as I reread this "You take the two short sides and put them on two edges of the field, with the ends of them touching.

Need to start over using the above quote...

[RotBaron]

From a quick visual observation of all 3 airfields, the length of the all the runways is not the same.

From the visual inspection you are correct KP, that the diagonal runways on the large airfield are the longest, and in theory of course that makes sense as it would be greater distance to traverse a square from say NE to SW , than comparatively going from N to S.

So, for the large airfields, assuming placing the triangle tip at the corner of the base is the correct method to do so, the long runways are the NE to SW or NW to SE.

Med airfield: it is the NE to SW.

And for the small, the length is? I believe the easiest way to know this is if HTC would tell us or to use a triangle on a printout where the printout has no variables in dimension, i.e. the size of the compared squares must be equal. At some point there must be a known distance to come up with the other variables.

[WWhiskey]

Or two of you could drive out and sit at opposite ends of each runway and read the icon distances!

[Krusty]

Due to the way the B-29 was loaded in real life, you can OVER LOAD it past max take-off in this game by mix-matching too much fuel and too much bombs. 40x500 is the max load of bombs. That means you CANNOT take the max fuel. I mean, realistically it's possible in this game, but you're lifting off beyond max takeoff weight limits and the airframe wasn't designed for that. If you want that many bombs, fly at reduced power once you're up to save fuel (that's how they did it in the war -- couldn't fly to Japan and back unless you cruised the entire way there and back).

Those max bomb loads were never dropped from extreme alts. They were carpet bombed from much lower alts. They looked at the mission profile and found out how much fuel they'd need to get to target alt (which wasn't very high), to cruise to target and back, and then how much free space was left. They filled that space with bombs. Some of these missions came in between 5k and 10k alt, though in the dark of night for protection.

For the missions that went up into the rare air, they flew with much smaller bombloads. Often only 5000 lbs or so on the longest and highest missions. The absolute maximum was around 125,000 lbs for MTO weight. Some sources say this stretches up to 130,000-35,000 ish, but 125,000 seems to be a better mean weight for MTO.

In AH when you take 40x500lb bombs and 100% fuel, you are just shy of 145,000 lbs. WAY overloaded. When you take 40x500lb and 75% you're still way overloaded at just shy of 135,000 lbs. At 50% fuel you finally get under the MTO by getting your weight down to about just shy of 125,000 lbs. And that was WITH a 10,000 foot smooth runway to assist in prolonged takeoffs.

Moral of the story is: Don't take 40 eggs if you want a long sortie. Taking extra fuel doesn't solve the problem, because your time to climb is in the toilet now, and your acceleration time if you ever level is utter crap too. You screw up your entire flight and make it 20x worse on yourself. Come in lower, or take less bombs, but either way fly LIGHTER. Take the 20x500lb load if you want full fuel. 20x500lb and 75% is just shy of the 125,000lb MTO, and 20x500lb and 100% is just shy of the hypothetical 135,000 lbs MTO.

40x500lbs was never meant to be anything other than a low and fast drop. You want to take it up to 35k, you're going to suffer the pains of doing so. I.E. crap takeoffs, crap climbs, crap accelerations, and crap turnaround times on repeat drops.

[ozrocker]

Another thing to add to your bag of tricks. After you spawn, make a U turn, go beyond runway to grass
(make sure it's relatively level).
Roll a bit then U turn again towards runway.
You can extend your runway by a good bit.
Don't auto-takeoff, right after liftoff go level a bit to gain more speed.



                                                                                                                                        Oz

[wrench]

Would letting the engines warm up at idle before going help?

Also could holding brakes while applying throttle until it starts to roll with brakes activated help?

[Babalonian]

Would letting the engines warm up at idle before going help?

Not in AH.  A trick I've found is since the engines are starting cold on the runway, as soon as they finish starting-up, apply WEP and from the time the engines warm up from cold to normal operating temp is free WEP... in some fighters this is as much as 60-seconds after wheeles up, in B-29s I think it's until about the end of the runway.

Also could holding brakes while applying throttle until it starts to roll with brakes activated help?

I do this method and believe that yes it does help.  Apply brakes > apply full throttle > release brakes.  There is really no need to hold the brakes with this method for more than 2-3 seconds though, I believe (hitech or someone said) in AH the game-code limits the real 100%-power aplicable on the runway for aircraft on auto take-off - to limits that would prevent it an aircraft from say torqueing itself over onto its back or ripping a wing/gear off.  As your aircraft gains speed down the runways, this "governor" applies more power until you're actually going say 60-knts down the runway and full 100% throttle.

[Krusty]

The holding of brakes only really helps in that you get full thrust instead of ramping it up. It means for a few seconds you get slower acceleration if you just roll normally (as your plane is still revving up and as you start overcoming friction with the ground). Holding brakes and then releasing just gives you a full "kick" to get going as fast as possible. I use that same trick on the 262s because they are very slow-revving and you need all the thrust you can for acceleration on take-off.


EDIT: But in all honesty take less gas. Or less bombs. See my previous reply about max takeoff weights and the loadouts in this game. HTC warned players when they released the B29 you can select a loadout beyond the MTO of the real plane due to the way the hangar system works.

[FLOOB]

The field I tried to takeoff from was 5.9 alt

Well there's your problem. Your taking off from an alpine base that was built by mountain ski troops.

[Zoney]

Since I expected to take my time getting to alt the location of the base I'm taking off from is not as important as how the base is set up.

Choose a large field and take off on the longest diagonal runway.  Choose a base with some altitude that drops away at the end of the runway.  Roll, (don't forget Wep), clear the edge of the base and nose down for speed as it drops away.  Hope this helps.  Learning this cost me about 500 Buff perkies.

[Lusche]

Since I expected to take my time getting to alt the location of the base I'm taking off from is not as important as how the base is set up.

Example: If someone really wants to take off with the max loadout, 40x500 & 100% fuel, he will take 75 minutes to reach 30k from sea level.
Taking off from 4k would reduce that time only by something like 7 minutes.

Do as Zoney said and look for best setup base: Long runway, no obstacles, and not much turning required on your way to the target.

[RotBaron]

In hindsight, it prolly makes more sense now to find the longer stretches on large airfields and choose a base that is closer to the front, even if it means doubling back to get to a proper alt. Less fuel, more lift so ~maybe accomplish about the same.

In the instance that I lost these, I wanted to be able to focus attention elsewhere while the autoclimb did the work for me...

Seems the lesson here is 100% fuel is too much for a significant amount of runways, and scout it out well first. I do wonder though if the runway I mention will accommodate 75% fuel. I think the base is 165 on Tagma.


 

[Lusche]

I do wonder though if the runway I mention will accommodate 75% fuel. I think the base is 165 on Tagma.

Don't wonder...

7) When in doubt test takeoff from the base in OFFLINE mode.

 

[fuzeman]

Take off way back and you raise a flag that there might be a bomber climbing.
I prefer to takeoff from a clear field near the front and climb while circling the grid.
But that's just me. 


Skuzzy, I did hit 'reply' , but I'm pretty sure my tone and attitude were within acceptable limits.   

[No9Squadron]

The reason 25% flaps was set before take-off roll was because it's not something that can be done 1 second before rotating in real life, but in AH, you will gain extra speed by delaying flaps until the aircraft is just about to rotate. If you do this, you will reach "V1/rotate" faster than if you set flaps at 25%, this gives a noticable improvement in acceleration.

The bishop are good at destroying ords in a wide area of bases, pushing bombers back further and further from front line bases, even just destroying 4-5 base ords can double knight bomber flight times and make them far more conspicuous as Fuzeman says. The nme bombers reach the front line faster and are less noticable.

Coastal bases are probably best, but do still check the runway out, some have trees at the end. I love the b29 in the game, offline I tested it a lot against flak under 8000 and I found that it's similar to a lancaster, the big open canopy leads to pilot wounding, but it's a fast beast and carries a lot. It takes a surprising amount of damage. Lose the tailgun though and you are in trouble, can't dogfight like a lanc, the wings will snap like a b24. Even 1 b29 with 8x2000lb can probably WF a town.