Not sure if its supposed to be like it is or how acurate yall want it to be but, as it is right now the auto take off for the B-17 is inefficiant for lack of proper description. It raises the tail wheel for a tail high take off. After watching the video at Zeno's on how to fly the B-17, the instructor states that it is more efficant to do a three wheel take off as opposed to tail high. He said something along the lines that the plane already sits at a take off angle of attack so when it reaches a take off speed it will lift off. In a tail high take off the plane has to have more speed/ more distance to lift off.
And for those folks who will say that they never use auto take off, thats fine. I do on occasion. Helps when a mission is upped and everybodies planes are stacked on top of each other and you cant see the runway. I also like to be lazy and go grab stuff on climb outs