Conspicuous by Their Absence

[Dave Cumming]

My encyclopedia has Mosquito Mk2 doing 1,705 miles , MkVI 1,120 miles @ 250mph, NF MkXII 1,520 miles @ 255mph @15,000 ft. I think that the initial mission in 'A Bridge Too Far' had a Mosquito mission which flew at 30,000 ft to achieve the required range.

[Ivan]

Mud??? Mud is NOT allowed!

Eating off the engine is not forbidden, but you might not like it if you don't like the current Gulf Coast cuisine and aromas.


- Ivan.

[womble55]

Hello womble55 and Ivan-Ivan,

Womble, don't you know? Ivan puts shower caps on his aircraft's wheels so they wont get soiled by the mud...

You could eat on top of one of its engines, if he would let you do that, which he totally forbids, of course!

Speaking of eating what if you wrapped a nice Rib Eye or T-Bone steak in silver foil and placed it between the cylinder banks of a Vee 12, after your mission there would be a hot meal ready.....

[Ivan]

Hi Womble55,

I think the steak would be seriously overcooked. It might also smell a bit of engine oil or gasoline kinda like Gulf Coast seafood.

Unrelated screenshot attached.
- Ivan.

[smilo]

personally, I prefer my steak grilled,
slightly charred and rare inside.
actually, a well wrapped roast
placed in the engine compartment
would be just about right
after a several hundred mile road trip.
potatoes, carrots and such
added with a hundred or so to go.
mmm, mmmm, mmm

btw, damn nice spit!

I am preparing to make another Mosquito test flight.
this time;
the Burnage B IV with 4 bombs
cruising speed 265 mph @ 17000 feet

I have added N50* E/W0* to my GPS
which will be the start point
set AP heading 270,
throttle 60% for starters
AP IAS hold does not work
slow, easy 300 FPM climb
and then, cruise until out of fuel.
there, I will take the GPS distance reading
back to N50* E/W0*
the question being is the GPS measuring
in statute miles or nautical miles?

the flight will be made in multi player
so the pause mode will have no effect.

[Ivan]

Hi Smilo,

Where can we get the Burnage Mosquito B.IV?

The Spitfire was built a couple years ago and still remains unpainted. There was a discussion about 3D models of Spitfires at another forum, so I got a couple screenshots. Not really related to this thread, but I just like the look of the plane.

I did some more flight testing of the P-40C this morning. The initial climb rate is around 2800 fpm at around 185 mph. The actual climb rate should be 2690 fpm at about 165 mph. I can adjust it, but this isn't too bad. The P-40C seems to work rather well with a P-47D propeller.


- Ivan.

[smilo]

flightsim;
http://www.flightsim.com/file.php?cm=INDEXCALL&sPos=290

actually, I am one of the lucky few
to have a copy of your spit mk ix
it is a truly fantastic model.
does need paint, though.

the P40 seems to be in the ballpark.
close enough for government work.

I just finished my mk iv endurance test.
like I stated above,
the AP Airspeed hold does not work.
consequently, when I would step away,
the AS would change radically.
I ran at 44-47% throttle
and the speed would fluctuate from 245- up to 295+ mph.
I never let it get past those points.
anyway, I ran out of fuel 1076 GPS miles from the start point.
needless to say, this is a disappointment.
I was hoping for a range of from 1500 to 2000 miles
as is mentioned in a book I have.
oh well, so it goes.

of course, if the GPS is reading NM
then I went 1238 miles,
but it's still short.

[Ivan]

Thanks Smilo,

As with all the other unfinished projects, the Spitfire will get finished eventually. I just realised at the time that I did not know enough about tuning climb rates to really do it justice. Almost two years later, I believe I know enough to try another attempt at it. P-40C comes first though because it just happens to be what I am interested in at the moment.

I know the US Navy calculated what it called "Yardstick Ranges" which didn't really map to an operational radius, but rather to how much fuel the aircraft carried and how far it could fly at cruising speeds without taking into account take-off and climb expenses or loitering over the target.

I found that I already had the Mosquito FB version installed on my computer. I downloaded the B.IV version last night but didn't have a chance to do anything to it. I can tell from the FB model (if it is by the same author) that his philosophy and mine differ a bit.

Now that you opened this rather large can of worms, I guess we will all need to check the fuel consumptions of our aircraft. I will check out the Mosquito Bomber some time today hopefully.

- Ivan.

[smilo]

Hi Ivan, smilo,

The FB6 type pilot manual states that the aircraft had 10 standard tanks! The "outer-wing" tanks (2 per wing) had 116 gallons capacity. The "main inner-wing" (2 per wing) had 286 gallons. The "main fuselage" two tanks carried 50 more gallons for a total of 452 gallons. These were "Imperial gallons", in US gallons, it was almost 543.

An additional "long range" fuselage tank could carry 63 gallons and two dropable 100 gallons wings tanks gave the total of 715 Imperial gallons (858.6796 US).

In some types, fuselage capacity was increased to 63 gallons and dropable 200 gallons tanks were also used.

...

apparently, a long range mosquito with external tanks
has not been modeled.
attached is a copy of a document included with
the RAF662 Mosquito FB.VI by Roger Lowery
I believe this is where Hubba got the information stated above.
works for me, although, it would be nice
if there was a long range version.
that said,
I am rapidly coming to the conclusion
that this is the case with most,
if not all, CFS models
and that it is a little late in the game
to start worrying about it too much.
so it goes.

Ivan, from my searching,
there are other mosquitoes out there.
no small wonder...it's a great plane.
my visual favorites are
the RAF662 by Roger Lowery
and 2 versions by Philippe Burnage.
I especially like the Mk IV bomber
with the plexiglas nose.
there are also versions by Shigeru Tanaka
and RAF 2000 versions that appear to be by Tanaka as well.
at the risk of being overly critical,
I am not fond of these visual models.
consequently, I have not taken the time
to really check them out closely
--------------
speaking of tanks and switches,
(yeah, it's a stretch)
Ivan, as I recall, long ago,
you were looking for a multi-position fuel tank switch
for your Dauntless...or am I dreaming?
did you ever find one?
I may have good news.

-----------------------------------------

as a side note;
asper Hubba's recommendation a while back,
I have been looking at the forum moderation tools.
does anyone object to my running an experiment?
I would like to try copying the mosquito related posts
to a new mosquito range thread.
if it works, I will then delete said posts
from this thread with an appropriate message.
please, please, can I try, please...

as there appears to be only 5 of us
actively using this place,
I will wait for your input
before I do my experiment...

[Ivan]

Feel free to experiment with the posts.

BTW, I just checked out the Mosquito flight model with FDE. The plane has three fuel tanks:
525 Left Tank: 231 gallons
526 Right Tank: 231 gallons
531 Center Tank: 0 gallons

Looks like the attempt was to combine all the wing tanks and half of the fuselage tanks on each side. Doesn't look like the conversion from Imperial Gallons to US Gallons happened, so the numbers are about 20% off.

The Conversion to Imperial Gallons should gain you about 20% range. There are a bunch of other things to try, but that is starting to deviate a bit from real values. I may mess with it a little but won't promise anything. I am fairly sure there are other significant issues with this flight model.

- Ivan.

[smilo]

granted, the document above is for the Mk VI,
but,
Fuel and oil systems
1. Fuel tanks
Fuel is carried in four outer wing tanks, four inner wing tanks, and two centre tanks.
The fuel capacities are as follows:
Main supply
Centre tanks 50 gallons

Inner wing tanks 286 gallons

Outer tanks 116 gallons

Total 452 gallons


The fuel capacities are given in imperial gallons. FS measures fuel in US gallons, so you will see larger numbers in the Engine and Fuel dialog.

In the real mosquito you can switch between main supply and outer tanks, but you can not use both at the same time. While the main supply can feed both engines, the starboard outer tanks will only feed the starboard engine and the port tank the port engine. If one engine fails, fuel left in the corresponding outer tank can not be used so the outer tanks should be emptied first.

interesting.

[smilo]

so why , do you suppose,
he chose a total of 462 instead of 452?
different resource, maybe?

452 IG= 542.829 gallons
462 IG= 554.838 gallons

making the change from Imperial to Standard Gallons
should get the range within the ballpark.
how much work is it to make that adjustment?
if it is simple and you have the time,
I can make the test flight.

any ideas why my AP Airspeed hold doesn't work?

[Ivan]

Hi Smilo,

Check Wikipedia. The Fuselage tanks originally held 50 gallons. In later models, they held 63 gallons, so:
One outter wing tank + One inner wing tank + 1/2 fuselage tanks (rounded down)
58+143+30(should be 31) = 231

I can change the AIR file pretty easily. As I commented on earlier, there are a bunch more bugs than this. Also, I am going to put some capacity into the Fuselage tank. With just the three tanks, the fuel selector for the stock P-51D should work just fine.

BTW, are you using a different panel with your plane? The panel that came with it seems to have some problems also: I tried to switch off engines by just using panel ignition controls and only the left one seems to do anything. Also it switches OFF when BOTH magnetos are selected.

Do you want me to send you just the modified AIR file with the fuel capacity change (quick) or with a few additional checks and probable changes? The problem is that a simple fuel capacity change won't get you the range you are looking for. If you are just looking for the range to fly a mission, let me know what you want the fuselage tank to be set at (conversion says 75.5 US Gallons).

- Ivan.

[Ivan]

If you think THIS is getting screwy, consider that with German fighters, you really can't select the drop tank. There typically is an air pressure line that plumbs into the drop tank and forces the fuel into one of the on board tanks. When you drop the tank, the internal tanks will be as full as they can be.

Also, some planes use what they call a "Standpipe Reserve". That means that although there may only be one fuel tank on board, the selector draws from one of two positions: Either at the lowest part of the tank (all fuel available) (also called Reserve) or a higher position which doesn't draw fuel below the reserve level.

The Dauntless actually has an inboard and an outboard wing tank, but I am not sure that they are individually selectable. If not, then effectively there is only one wing tank per side.

I have been playing with swapping gauges between the various stock panels. My current P-40 panel is basically a P-51D panel with fuel switching from the FW 190A. What I can't decide yet is the order the tanks should be on the selection. FWIW, the Ki-61 panel is basically a Me 109E panel with P-51D fuel selection. (The Me 109 doesn't have a fuel selector because it only has one internal fuel tank.) It may not look right, but it IS functional.

- Ivan.

[smilo]

I must be getting denser...
I don't see how increasing the capacity
could not increase the range.
but, I will take your word for it.
I would like the quick .air file
if it isn't too much trouble.
please and thank you in advance.

oddly enough, the standpipe reserve is familiar.
I have an old Massey-Ferguson tractor
that uses the technique.
the fuel valve is initially opened 1/4 turn
and the tractor is operated until it runs out of fuel.
the reserve is activated by manually turning the fuel valve full open.
there is just enough fuel to get back to the barn.

try shutting down the mosquito with Ctrl+Shift+ F1
that's Mixture idle cutoff
very odd about the ignition only half working.

oh yeah, I am using a different panel.
it's for precision bombing.