Skewgear

If realism is your thing, it's worth knowing that tickover (ground idle) in the Spit means selecting 1,200rpm. You wouldn't leave the engine at idle (throttle against the stop) because that promotes plug fouling.

The drift meter/recorder will be an excellent navigation addition. With any kind of crosswind the Mosquito really likes to weathercock into it so calculating drift for a flight of any distance at all becomes really important. Looking forward to this.

If you want to try advanced radio navigation using the DF equipment in the Mosquito FB VI that we have, the Project Overlord multiplayer server has three tunable radio beacons. A skilled navigator can thus pinpoint your location anywhere on the Normandy map, any altitude, any time.

Ugra Media has a static Liberty Ship model baked into the Normandy 2 map at some ports. Perhaps ED could strike a deal to include that and other Ugra static models in the WW2 asset pack?

So you've built that brilliant cockpit and panel setup ... but then you put on a VR headset so you can't see any of it?

Good idea! Yes, in due course - it's due for a couple of tweaks now it's been running Normandy for a while.

We have introduced three new historical navigation beacons across the Normandy map for use by player Mosquito crews. The old Ste Croix and Needs Oar Point beacons have therefore been decommissioned with immediate effect. The new beacons are marked on the F10 map in all missions; a sample is shown below. The beacon details are as follows: Bernay Elektra-Sonne BL -... .-.. 307kc/s Whitlands (Lyme Regis) RDF D -.. 3.8Mc/s Haine (Manston) RDF F ..-. 3.6Mc/s All missions have had minor performance improvements (removal of unused elements such as redundant triggers and trigger zones) made. 24th June 1944 v5.3.5 has also had the new PO warehousing system rolled out. This includes supply convoys driving to and from selected airfields. (Yes, you can destroy these convoys and cut off the airfield supplies!) Player count remains capped at 45 on the PO server as a temporary measure, hopefully until ED publishes a fix for the current multiplayer server performance problems. See you in the skies! The Project Overlord Team https://www.projectoverlord.co.uk/documents/mission-update-radio-navigation-beacons/

Minimum single engine speed is around 150mph. If you are slower than that, you will crash. Lose height to regain speed. There is no going around from a poor approach if your speed is below 150mph. Accept you are going to land on the ground in front of you once your airspeed is below that critical point. Do not lower the gear until you are committed to landing, and remember it takes longer to extend and lock because you'll only have one hydraulic pump. Maximum power on the remaining single engine is 12lbs. More than that and you will exceed the combined rudder and trim authority needed to overcome the asymmetric thrust, meaning you will crash. The Mosquito cannot maintain height on one engine with the dead engine's prop unfeathered. If you cannot feather it, you will stall and crash. Dump all extra weight (bombs and drop tanks) as soon as you can after shutting down and feathering a dying or dead engine. Remember to shut the bomb doors and the radiator flap for the dead engine. Don't be afraid to make an early decision to put it down in a field. Better to survive the inevitable crash than not.

How long did it take?

If we had the option to turn it off server side then on Project Overlord we would turn it off. But it's not an option, so we can't. That said, it's the one crutch we have for newbies. Difficult enough flying with zero external views or the F10 gods eye mode if you're used to that.

The first Second Tactical Air Force Mosquito squadron to move to the continent was No.604, who moved into Maupertus in the final days of July 1944 for night fighter operations. Another squadron moved into Carpiquet in late August but again, they were nightfighters. Project Overlord stops at mid August before any FB.VI squadrons moved across. We decided to turn a blind eye to the exact type and positioned Mosquitos at Maupertus in late July missions onwards. There are errors in this table rescued from a very old and long dead website but about 90% of it is accurate for dates and locations: https://www.projectoverlord.co.uk/history/second-tactical-air-force-order-of-battle/

2350rpm and +7lbs boost is an economical way of crossing the Channel. Burns about 30 gallons per tank from takeoff to feet dry at the far end while flying at 50ft, so about 110nm. There's no reason you couldn't drop the revs further. The Spitfire happily cruises forever at 2000rpm/+2lbs, for example. In the Mossie I'd pull the throttles well back, pull the revs to 1850rpm and then throttle up to +7lbs in weak mixture for max fuel economy. Otherwise I follow the pilots' notes, remembering to convert knots to statute mph for the speeds because the 1950 edition seems to be at odds with the actual aeroplane's units. The key thing is to watch the oil pressure to keep it below ~110psi and avoid going over 8lbs boost. Our simulated Merlin seems happiest with lean mixtures (at and below 7lbs in auto mixture) at any low rpm setting.

Thanks for this. Can't promise anything but your track does clearly show a difference between shutting down from hot start spawn and shutting down after a player engine start.

For those saying the engines should splutter and backfire a bit on shutdown, it seems the real aircraft shuts down very quickly indeed with barely a pop:

RAF Hartfordbridge (today known as Blackbushe) would be a great addition because it was the base of 88 Sqn, one of the RAF's A-20 squadrons. RAF Lasham was also a major Mosquito base. Seconded on RAF Thorney Island. However, we should suggest some USAAF airfields. We really are lacking in those.

Project Overlord has had wake turbulence turned on for a few months now. For a long time we believed it would be a performance hog, then we did some public experiments and discovered the impact was negligible on the server and players reported little negative effect on their systems. If I remember rightly it's a forced server side setting, so everyone experiences the same when they fly with us. It is not enabled on the 4YA WW2 training server, however.

Yes, I have.

Bah. Yes I meant declination, not deviation!

Declination (edit, not individual compass deviation, see below) is modelled according to mission date and variation rate over time. Check the mission editor compass rose for the default June 2016 date when you open the editor, and then check what it says after you change the date to July 1944. Individual airframe speed variation definitely seems modelled in the Mossie (try flying close formation on a Channel transit with other players). As mentioned, my belief is the card we see on the left sidewall (I.e. Next to the pilot's compass) is the mag dev card. Placing the RDF deviation card there would make even less sense than placing the main compasses out of sight of the navigator...

There already is a deviation card in the Mosquito cockpit. Left sidewall, in line with the port engine oil pressure warning light.

Right, got it now. Will flag.

I think this is (finally!) correct. Not many YouTube videos out there of the P8, and this isn't the best, but you can clearly see that the needle and the reference lines are not locked together.

Just stumbled across a historical snippet which means there's a complete answer available. 453 Sqn recorded their aircraft serial numbers at the end of each month's Form 541, reconciling letter to serial number. At the end of May 1944 (i.e. a week or two before the photo above) these were: A MH443 B MJ789 D MK575 E MK288 F MH418 G MH355 H MK355 J MH487 K MK260 L NH244 M MJ333 N MJ779 P MH454 R NH208 S MK618 T MK285 U MK284 V NH274 Z MK421 ? MK379 K in the photo above is therefore MK260. A Castle Bromwich LF.IX, taken on charge by 9 Maintenance Unit from the factory on 2nd February 1944. The background Spitfire is clearly not coded ? which was the CO's personal marking; apparently he went through six such machines coded ? according to https://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/235017530-spitfire-mkixc-bs227-fuu/page/2/#comment-3605666 Judging by the part of the code letter visible on the background machine it must be one of these four, 453 having no FU-I: FU-L MK566 - Castle Bromwich LF.IX taken on charge by 39MU on 1st March 1944 FU-H MK355 - Castle Bromwich LF.IX taken on charge at 9MU on 4th February 1944 FU-U MK284 - Castle Bromwich LF.IX taken on charge at 6MU on 2nd February 1944 FU-J MH487 - Castle Bromwich LF.IX taken on charge at 33MU on 17th August 1943 MH487 was previously the CO's personal mount in April, being coded ? during that month before the delivery of MK379 in June which took on the ? code letter. Combining this with what looks like a squadron leader's pennant and a piece of unique nose art in the photo, I am fairly sure that the Spitfire in the background is MH487. With MH487 being the older aircraft, it seems likely to me it may well have been fitted with ex-Mk.V components of no critical importance on the production line. Incidentally, MH487 was destroyed in a crash recorded as so: "Crashed Coombe Hill W of Eastbourne on ferry flight 13-6-44 FSgt DG Saunders (RAAF)+"

I'm unclear as to why the M2HB gun enters the discussion at all in the context of WWII aircraft weapons. Both the P-51D and the P-47D carried the AN/M2 gun with the 36" (35.8") bbl. We should expect significantly lower MVs than for the 45" bbl M2HB, for the simple reason that the aircraft gun bbl is 9" shorter. I'm on the move so don't have access to my ballistic calculator software, but any of the free online ones will return ballpark figures illustrating that point. You don't need a university course in thermodynamics or exterior/terminal ballistics for this one! For Yo-Yo, I would caution that the mid/late 1940s was a huge period of data gathering and capture. Much of what we know about WWII tactics and equipment was written down in the years immediately after the end of the war as both British and American forces went on a spree of writing manuals and carrying out experiments to quantify "common knowledge" before too many soldiers were demobilised. A 1947 manual, in my view, just as likely to contain reliable data than a 1944 edition. Certainly much of what is known about British gun and ammunition performance today comes from post war trials.

What would be good is any design or maintenance (collimation?) instructions for the sight itself. The gunsight does seem particularly difficult to use although RAF training of the time focused heavily on lateral deflection shooting rather than the vertical plane we all seem to end up in.