I decided to take a flight of Bostons out to a Rook city in Orange this afternoon. Since Boston's have relatively short range I planned my mission carefully; one sector to grab alt, one sector to gain speed and one more to complete calibration just as I arrived at target with one extra sector to spare. My plan was to climb to 18-20K knowing I'd still have enough speed at that alt to make it difficult for anyone to catch me if they had to climb.
So, loaded with 4x500 lb bombs I took off. As I hit about 10K alt I noticed a con crossing our radar to the northeast and generally headed in a dirction to intercept me. I'm sure he thought he'd find some low slow buffs and was salivating at the opportunity for a few easy kills. Since these little Bostons aren't very well armed I decided to turn back and land them, but as I was on final appraoch to my original take off field the con turned east, so I reversed and started to climb once again. Unfortunately, this incident had nearly emptied my aux fuel and, with my fuel situation already close I was worried I might not make it to target and back.
As I reached two sectors from my target, level at 20K and mostly up to speed, E6B was reading 100 miles range and, with two return field options within 50 miles I was feeling confident that I could make it to and from the target without throttling back.
At about that point I flew directly over an enemy CV, puffy ack exploding all around me. I looked down as the CV started a hard turn and I could only imagine the little Generals below me... "High buffs... turn the CV". I flew on taking two minor pings but, aside from my heart stopping momentarily with each hit they did no damage.
A con momentarily crossed the next sector line with me but immediatley turned back for what could only be more lucrative targets over another Rook strat factory.
After crossing the only enemy radar ring that I would need to on this flight I arrived at target and dropped one 500 pounder on each of three building clusters from 20K at at 306 mph. I immediately jumped into external view looking down with the text buffer expanded. First drop good... second drop good... third drop good. With the text buffer nearly filled with building destroyed messages a quick check of the target status showed that I had taken 24% of the city down.
Feeling good about my drop I cut throttle and rpms and decided to fly far enough out to turn and drop one more building cluster with my last bomb even though I may be a glider by the time I got home. I opened the doors and watched the speed drop estimating what I'd need to calibrate to after my turn. 250-260 seemed about right. Just as I was about to cross into another Rook radar ring I turned, nosing up and down as needed to hit that estimated drop speed before leveling out.
I calibrated again at 260 mph while showing 257 but gaining. As I approached I had a hard time deciding what cluster to hit and, in the end I think I chose the wrong one taking only another 5% of the city which was now down to 71%.
As I turned SW toward home across an enemy radar ring a plane upped below me. He crossed into the city sector then right back into the sector I was in. I looked down to see a Typhoon 5.5K below and behind me. I cranked the throttle and rpms back up and watched his distance counter receed until he was only a dot. So far so good but now E6B was telling me I was going to be well short of my closest field.
Just before the Typhies dot disappeared it started to draw closer again. I pointed my nose at the horizon. As I did E6B was telling me I had less than 1 minute of fuel left and there was no way I'd make base, still almost 40 miles away. I considered bailing momentarily but instead chopped RPM leaving throttle at max. As I did my range improved to almost double what I needed, my speed increased to somewhere north of 400 mph and the Typhie faded into the distance.
As I crossed into my own radar I was thinking the Typh had broken off for greener pastures and began to slow for landing. Just then he crossed radar behind me and I bumped the manifold pressure back up. He was hot on my tail now and just at that moment I ran out of fuel.
As I crossed the end of my runway I was still in excess of 250 mph and friendlies who were upping were warning me about the Typhoon. I cranked in full rudder and opposite aileron and slipped it until I was under 150, then leveled for a wheels up landing. When I hit the runway I was past the midway point and skidded for what seemed to be an eternity. I guess all that wieght carries some momentum.
Just as I came to a stop I heard two pings and saw the Typh zoom by, breaking hard to his left. I .efluffied and landed all three Bostons successfully.
I took down 29% of the city, scored 266000 damage points with a 1325% hit %, outran a Typhie and made it home to tell about it. That might have been the most fun I've had in a month or two.
Hope you enjoyed the story. Go Bostons!
