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jinx
February 11th, 2013, 00:23
:salute: Sometime last week I simulated part of a historic flight that is described in Alan Moorehead's book "the Desert War".
Alan was a passenger in that flight and it involved a Bristol Bombay flying from Cairo, Egypt to Iran in late August 1941. Iran was named Persia at the time. Alan's job, along with other war correspondents' on the same plane, was to cover the invasion of Persia by a mix of Russian and British military forces acting in cooperation It was about 1000 miles away. They took off from Heliopolis airfield, near Cairo.
The conducting officer was a fellow named Kim Mundy and nicknamed "the Flying Tank", as he had joined the RAF in the last war and the Tank Corps in thisThe flew east from Cairo in the morning and came down in Lydda near Jeruslaem.Then cruised along the Iraqi desertand landed at Habbaniyeh, an RAF base, in the heat.Next morning they flew along the brown course of the Euphrates river and over the confluence with the Tigris and thence to Basra on the Persian Gulf...
Then they followed the war from the ground, missing most of the engagements as they arrived too late in most cases.
This was the first time in the war that Russia and Britain had fought together against someone.
The book is highly entertaining in these pages andI decided to try the flight in FS9.
I downloaded brbombay.zip by Willian Dickens, changed the panel somewhat and added an autopilot window and replaced some of the cfs2 gauges, and I took off from Cairo West, HECW. After flying 126 nm I landed at El Arish, HEAR, in a hurry, as it was 4 a.m my local time by now and I had to go to bed. I shut the PC and bolted to bed.

Next day I flew a 2nd leg, from El Arish to LLJR Jerusalem, a distance of 85 nm. I had made a flight plan with FS Navigator and I flew curving up and northeast along the coast of Egypt and flew over the Gaza strip. The surprise was that nearing Gaza the terrain changed from arid and flat desert to green and lush, with palm trees etc and I immediately realized why the Gaza strip has been a bone of contention in the area, with wars to capture it. FS9 default scenery captures the terrain change well.
Another interesting aspect is that the Bombay has a dropout window with 2 fuel gauges. The upper gauge allows you to switch from left to right to central fuel tank and the lower gauge needle moves according to the fuel left in each tank. At some stage, my center tank was empty and I had to switch to a side tank just in time, as my engine started to splutter and cough. I flew in hard settings all those flights.
My 3rd leg was from LLJR Jerusalem to an airfield named OR1J in the desert (there is no name for that airfield in fs9, only a code), again with an FS Navigator flight plan, a distance of 239 nm.

The Bombay lands at 59-64 knots in hard settings and in full flap. One has to switch tanks often on the way.

:wavey:I found these flights very rewarding. The aircraft represents a Bristol Bombay Mk. I of 216 sqn painted in midstone/dark earth overs with light grey unders, coded C-SH in white, serialled L5857. It was in the same aircraft that General William Gott was killed when he was strafed on the ground by two Me-109's of JG27. There is a painting of the strafing on the net.
Ironically, this very popular general of the 8th Army was known as "Strafer Gott", and he was killed by being strafed himself while taking off in the same fs9 plane I used, about a year later than my flight...
I set a date of late August 1941 (30th) to fly and used internet real weather.
The painting is here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ww2images/6949628610/

Details and the story of the attack here:

http://weaponsandwarfare.com/?p=4753

Information on Gott here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Gott
and here:
http://weaponsandwarfare.com/?p=4754
Perhaps you can try this flight if you like this sort of historic pseudo-simulation.

I had lots of fun and will continue my legs...

There is Bombay for FSX, but not one of 216 sqn Begs for a repaint, that one.
I have flown Paul Clawson's FSX aircraft and it is not in the middle east camouflage and shows no serial or code letters.
I may try to repaint it in desert colours or perhaps someone else could do it. Villa or Radice, could you help with the repaint please?

This link shows photos and serials of Bombays and a good photo of the cabin with passengers..:

http://www.adf-messageboard.com.au/i...showtopic=2024

:isadizzy:I have also found this additional information:

Greek Royal Family:
On 2 May 1941, Bombays of No. 216 Squadron RAF evacuated the Greek Royal Family from Crete to Egypt. (Source: Wikipedia: Bristol Bombay)

The Bristol Bombay was a British medium bomber and troop transport aircraft flown by the Royal Air Force (RAF) during the Second World War. (Source: Wikipedia: Bristol Bombay)
British Expeditionary Force (World War II):
Although it was outclassed for the European theatre, it saw some service ferrying supplies to the British Expeditionary Force in France in 1940. (Source: Wikipedia: Bristol Bombay)
Italian invasion of Egypt:
This included ninety-six obsolete Bombay bombers and Blenheim medium bombers. (Source: Wikipedia: Italian invasion of Egypt)
Battle of Bardia:
Air raids on Bardia resumed in the lead up to the ground assault, with 100 bombing sorties flown against Bardia between 31 December 1940 to 2 January 1941, climaxing with a particularly heavy raid by Vickers Wellington bombers of No. 70 Squadron RAF and Bristol Bombay bombers of No. 216 Squadron RAF on the night of 2/3 January 1941. (Source: Wikipedia: Battle of Bardia)

=============

:jump:That is why another Greek friend, Stavros Verras, told me earlier on the phone that Bombays had been through Greece. They evacuated the Royal family...
Your comments are welcome.

Best Regards,


Nick Tselepides
Athens, Greece
10th Feb.2013

Motormouse
February 11th, 2013, 02:33
'Bout time we had a period representation of Habbaniya. Over to Mr Elliott!!
At the time it was active, was described as one of the most beautiful bases in the world.

Ttfn

Pete

ian elliot
February 11th, 2013, 08:25
why me, what have i done :mixedsmi:
seriously though, it would make a good subject and i found a great site too-----
http://www.habbaniya.org/
so you never know, cheers ian

norab
February 11th, 2013, 09:08
a version of the Bombay by William Dickens foe FS2004/CF2 in those markings can be found here

http://www.simviation.com/fs2004vintage61.htm

sixth done HTH

jinx
February 11th, 2013, 09:33
:salute:Thank you motormouse and Ian for your replies.

Ian,
I had some of your sceneries in a previous instal of fs9 but not in my current one. I downloaded all of them today (for fs9) and will install themn again.

One question: can't one of these be transferred as it is to an approximate location for Habbaniya?

Thanks for the link on Habbaniya.

Tonight I will start a repaint of the fs9 Bombay...

Thanks again


Nick

ian elliot
February 11th, 2013, 10:19
One question: can't one of these be transferred as it is to an approximate location for Habbaniya

Not sure what would be gain'd by doing that, probably easy'r building from scratch,
just flown over the area in FS9 and had a quick look at Google earth, im thinking the FS9 runways in the wrong place and/or a river need's re-routing, alot of messing around with VTP2 polys to get it looking right, not my favorite job :mixedsmi:, i'll kick it into my maybe box.
cheers ian

jinx
February 12th, 2013, 03:35
:salute:
Thank you Ian for looking into it.

Is there a way I could move it for myself, or a program that would do it?

Nick

Motormouse
February 12th, 2013, 04:14
Forgot to say, Alphasims (virtavia) Al Taqaddum is right next door, having grown out of a satellite of Habbaniya.
You can find that in their freeware downloads, and if you dig out the scenery pack for the Empire flying boats, (Flightsim.com iirc)
Lake Habbaniya is one of the stops.


Ttfn

Pete

ian elliot
February 12th, 2013, 08:58
Didnt sleep to well last night so i play'd around with Habbaniya in SBuilder and ADE, im quite pleased with the result, ive removed the built up areas and replaced with scrub, got rid of the old airfield background and created a new one, but ive lost the river that flow'd along the southern boundery of the airfield, you can create rivers with SBuilder but its abit of a head-scratcher as to how to do it :mixedsmi:, all in all, looks promising.
cheers ian

Shessi
February 12th, 2013, 12:01
Hi-Jinx,
Found that interesting reading, thanks.

Seems one of those 'what-if' scenarios,.....if he hadn't been killed and ol' Monty hadn't taken over the 8th etc etc....

As Norab says, Bis13's Bombay is a good substitute. I dirtied up the camo, and had a fly towards Cairo, with FS Recorder.

Cheers Shessi

jinx
February 14th, 2013, 00:42
:salute:

Ian,

Thanks for your effforts. Seems like we shall soon have another excellent scenery by you.

Sheshi:
Whiich Bombay is that? And how did you manage to have one on the ground and a Me109 in the air in fs?

:icon_lol:Great pictures.

Yes, that scenario is very interesting and I shall work on other historic flights and post the information here. Next one may be one with the B-26 Marauder, "hitchhiker.zip". That has plenty of repaints and many missions of interest are described in the net.


Thanks again to all.

:jump::salute::wavey:

Nick

norab
February 14th, 2013, 02:04
Sheshi:
Whiich Bombay is that? And how did you manage to have one on the ground and a Me109 in the air in fs?

please see my post #4 above

Motormouse
February 14th, 2013, 09:53
please see my post #4 above



One of options in recorder is record a flight, then play it back as ai

Ttfn

Pete

Sunny9850
February 14th, 2013, 12:02
"It has not been unknown for a commander to pass from disaster to disaster, but it is quite without precedent for any commander to pass from promotion to promotion as a reward for a succession of disasters."[27]

They must be talking about my boss there ;)

Interesting story there.

Stefan

stuartcox
February 14th, 2013, 12:11
Shessi gave me an idea!
This is a beautifully modelled aircraft, but unfortunately without paint details.
There are no panel lines, rivets, shading etc...
I had a go at it with my limited skills. There is no paint kit, so I just scribbled onto the original textures. But she comes alive!
If anybody should have more time and experience than myself, then this would be a great project...

81051

Shessi
February 14th, 2013, 13:03
SC, that looks good, so much better!

It's a good looking model, just needs the clothes to go with it.


Jinx,
As stated by Norab in the thread. Here at Simviation... http://simviation.com/1/download?file=BrBombay.zip&fileId=20483.

Several aircraft in one pic is done with FS Recorder, see here at http://www.fs-recorder.net/. A free programme, which you can record flights, then play them back as traffic, so you can fly another aircraft and play the original flight back as traffic, AND record that as well (and so on...). There are other ways but this is the easiest.

Cheers

Shessi

jinx
March 9th, 2013, 14:53
:salute:Stuart,

I will certainly repaint this and add panel lines and perhaps some weathering. I will upload it when I do it and if I think it is okay.


:salute:Ian,


Thanks for the information and your time.


And again, thanks to all for the interest shown.:medals:

At the moment I have been busy adding fixed cabin views to the Mike Stone Twin Pioneer, a very old model but I discovered it works in FSX also and at BritSim they have a good sound of its Leonides engines and a panel. Now that a/c has many historic flights to simulate...:wavey::wavey::running:

jinx
March 13th, 2013, 00:40
:salute:I have already started the repaint of the Bombay and I have added some panel lines and weathering, and tried to keep the lines as close as possible to the original ones by looking at photos. So far, I am pleased with it.
I will upload it when it is finished.:wavey:

Nick

jinx
March 15th, 2013, 13:39
Here is a screenshot of engine soot from my repaint. Which side looks better, port or starboard?

srgalahad
March 15th, 2013, 15:05
At the moment I have been busy adding fixed cabin views to the Mike Stone Twin Pioneer, a very old model but I discovered it works in FSX also and at BritSim they have a good sound of its Leonides engines and a panel. Now that a/c has many historic flights to simulate...:wavey::wavey::running:

Not to get (or let YOU get) distracted by the TwinPin, but if you want one in FSX, Rob Richardson has one available
http://www.robertjamesrichardson.co.uk/page4.html?oo=ffx

Now, back to our regularly unscheduled Bombay flight....

Shessi
March 16th, 2013, 02:33
Hi Nik,
That's a very good start. With texturing in the sims, IMHO 'less is more', step back and take a look yourself, and be honest.

What do you think a well used, but a dry, desert based ac, would weather like?

Google the Bombay and look at images, what's the overall look or effect of desert flying on ac? I know there would be rain and mud at times, but generally speaking......

Also would the RAF allow their ac to get too dirty or stained??!! :salute:

Look at other sim ac with exhaust staining, would your Bombay have whiter staining in it or possibly sooty black?

Just a few thoughts, but post some more pics so we can see.

Cheers Shessi

Sunny9850
March 16th, 2013, 07:04
The right side to me looks like the engine on this particular flight had a major failure. The left is closer to what might be general soot deposits.
However, aren't the exhausts located on the bottom of the engines in this case ??? So the majority of deposits would be on the bottom of the wing. The top then would just have the usual spots and splatches from the small leaks many round engines have.

Cheers
Stefan

Sunny9850
March 16th, 2013, 18:14
I actually retract the bit of the exhausts being underwing after looking at a number of better images on the web. My bad.

Cheers
Stefan

jinx
April 12th, 2013, 12:12
I am working on the repaint of the Bombay.
Many photos show oil stains and grime on the wings, both unders and overs, going back from the engines.

I have also made a splashscreen for my fs9, see attached image please.

Nick