Dave Tonks tries his hand at the new B-17 sim from A2A Simulations, and can’t resist dropping a few bombs along the way.
One of the magic things about flight simming is the opportunity to ‘fly’ the kind of aircraft you have a particular leaning toward. Some guys love the big jets and spend their time flying around the globe (or their country) with amazing levels of realism. You can fly the exact same aircraft on the exact same route being flown by one of the major carriers, eg, QANTAS Flight 123 from Brisbane to Sydney as Captain of a Boeing 737-800, using SIDS (Standard Instrument Departures) and STARS (Standard Terminal Arrivals), in real time weather that is being downloaded from the internet as the flight progresses.
Or you may be a fast jet fan with all sorts of magic machines in your virtual hangar – I have the F-111 and F-18 Hornet, and if I’m that way inclined in the future I know I can get the F-16 Viper, F-14 Tomcat, and F-15 Eagle. You name it, and somewhere along the way some company (or individual) will have produced it for the benefit of simmers.
One of the biggest genres for flight simming is WWII aircraft. Start talking about Warbirds and the conversation will soon shift to the classics – P51 Mustang, Spitfire, and bombers like the B25, B17 and Lancaster. The B25 is available for FSX as a brilliant freeware package from RCS Panels, so don’t hesitate – if you haven’t yet enjoyed the magic of flying the B25 in FSX then you are missing out. In a search for WWII aircraft, I recently came across the A2A B-17, and after a quick peek at the website I was intrigued enough to lash out and spend $35.85 AUD of my hard-earned – and am I glad I did!
First impression of the exterior is that the accuracy is a mixed bag – there certainly is a lot of rivets and some very nice detailing of items like the radial engines and undercarriage, but if you zoom in real close there is some degradation of clarity there. Having said that, the overall view you get of the exterior is that this a very nice package, with some lovely weathering too. Taking a good hard look at the design of the aircraft leads to some interesting points. This version has no less than 13 barrels (mostly 50 calibre machine guns I would imagine), a veritable nightmare for any attacking aircraft.
Another interesting point is the fact that for a large, four-engined bomber, the size of the bomb bay is a surprise – the loadout is 4 x 500lb and 8 x 250lb bombs, not a lot when you consider the size of the aircraft. But then I guess they did fly missions with many bombers in the raid. And speaking of dropping bombs, there is a way you can do that with the B-17 (and any other aircraft in FSX for that matter). All you need to do is download the Weapons Pack from Avsim or Simviation, then install the package onto any aircraft you wish to drop bombs (or fire missiles) from. It can be a little tricky getting it up and running, but the end result is a hoot.
As is usual with this calibre of add-on, you can choose a complicated and accurate starting sequence for those wonderful radial engines, or just hit Ctrl E and away they will go, one at a time, from one to four. Interestingly, the manual start sequence starts with number three, followed by four, one, and two.
The 33-page manual includes 15 pages of original B-17 documentation, including many diagrams and information on starting, taxiing, take-off, flight characteristics and even formation flying. One thing I did find with the A2A B-17 is that it is a real bear to turn on the ground – even though I double-checked to ensure the tailwheel was unlocked, full rudder has little effect in turns on the ground – there are two Emergency Brake control handles situated on the roof of the cockpit, but using these individually is quite difficult. I found that the toe brakes fitted to my Saitek Rudder Pedals worked fine, but if you don’t have rudder pedals you will need to allocate individual braking to keyboard controls and use that method to control the aircraft during taxiing.
The cockpit is beautifully represented, with lots of pale green metal and quilting, along with an unusual instrument layout – instead of two sets of flight instruments, the major instruments (altimeter, airspeed, turn/slip, compass, VSI (Vertical Speed Indicator) and ILS (Instrument Landing System) are all situated in the centre of the panel. All the engine instruments are situated on the right, in front of the co-pilot, and the majority of navigation instruments are on the left in front of the pilot. The pedestal is dominated by the huge throttle levers, propeller and mixture controls.
Flying the A2A B-17 is a delight, with the obligatory rudder input for directional control during take-off – with the tailwheel brought off with elevator, the big bomber needs very little rotation for a majestic liftoff, followed by gear/flaps up and a solid climbout. Roll rate is, as expected, sedate, but she’s easily trimmed for cruise and is an absolute delight to watch in Fly-By view.
Another interesting point is that there are no undercarriage bay doors, the main gear simply rotates into position. When fully retracted the main wheels protrude from the wheel wells by about a third of the diameter of the wheels, which would still enable the aircraft to land on the wheels if the actuating mechanism failed. There is another feature to the A2A B-17 I haven’t seen before – if you do happen to land with the gear up the propeller blades all bend backwards after coming in contact with the ground, a nice touch of realism.
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