Bomber speed

[turt21]

Flying TU's with Allied yesterday encountered problem. Cruising along on Auto when I turn it off auto I had a decrease in speed. My flight left me behind and I was stuck at ~190mph even with WEP. Did stick cal no help. Only going into a dive did I get to go any faster???

[morfiend]

I suspect when you turned off auto pilot you were imparting extra drag which caused you to slow and fall out of formation. Each control surface adds some drag and slight manual corrections can and will slow you.

  The lead should fly at reduced power so all the planes following have excess thrust and are able to stay in formation.

  If you bring up E6B you can see the recommended power settings,if your engine is producing max performance,IE wep = so much MAP and so many RPM then it's drag thats holding you back.

   I hope I explained that properly and it helps.


   

[SIK1]

What Morf said is spot on. The auto pilot imparts less drag than manual control so you lose a few mph when hand flying the plane.

Once you fall out of formation it can be near impossible to regain your position if lead is at full throttle. This holds true for fighters as well as bombers.

There are a few tricks to try and regain your position such as cutting the corner when the group makes a turn, or going level when the group is climbing, but if the formation is flying straight and level at full throttle you just became tail end charlie.

 
Sik

[SPKmes]

Did you find it was pulling to one side?  I ask because...there has to be some real drag for a set of tutus to only get to 190 seems quite slow .... I suspect you may have an engine not running at full throttle... which is a mapping issue . Do you use multi engine planes in the main arena?

[Mongoose]

Something else to consider is altitude and Indicated Air Speed.  When you are looking at the HUD or the "speedometer" on the panel, it is giving you Indicated Air Speed.  If you look at the E6B, it will show you what your true air speed is.  If you look at the speed charts for the TU2, you will see that your should be getting much higher than 190, but again that is True Air Speed, not Indicated Air Speed.  The higher you are, the bigger the difference between IAS and TAS.

If you recorded the mission, you can see what your TAS was at that time.

[turt21]

Tonight I reflew the Tu's and couldnt get it to repeat. Flying full throttle and lowering rpm. The manifold press dropped but when going full throttle the manifold press went right up again. This was after toggling Auto pilot a few times. Im up again Sat so Ill be watching it.