Thank you & bug report for mission 8

[CaptainCernick]

Hi Reflected,

First of all: Wow. BNOB is an awesome campaign. Best fun I've had flightsimming for a few years!
It's allowing me to build confidence with the P51, even if I still regularly have to refly a mission after having allowed a 109 to gain my tail. The immersion built into the campaign is great. You've clearly done a lot of research on WW2 aviation and it shows in every little detail.

I Loved (capital L) every mission so far, but my last was the Pointe du Hoc mission. It even surpassed what I experienced in the previous missions. The sheer amount of AAA at the target was awesome and at once intensely scary to behold. Bouncing some 190's after my bombing run was a nice extra. (them being occupied by Spitfires made it a relatively easy and risk free bonus episode to the mission, which was great for a ham-fisted dogfighter like me:)

This was already pretty great, but what elevated the mission to a whole new level for me, were the details worked into it:
Flying out, I had already semi-consciously noted that there was more interference on the radio than in previous missions. The wheezing and scratching in my headphones eventually faded into a German propaganda broadcast (lord Haw Haw?) halfway across the channel, followed by a flippant retort by one of my flight members. This interlude made for a brilliant secondary story to the tension building, hurtling along at wavetop height in anticipation of reaching the French coast. 
Flying back: the kneeboard briefing directed me to climb to 10.000 feet on the way back. Incidentally, the tops of the 3/4 cloud layer were between 9,5k and 10k. Surfing the clouds bathed in the soft hues of the sunrise made for one of the most memorable experiences I've had in 25 years of flightsimming. This coincidence of weather, time of day and flight plan might have been lucky, but I think it feels like the touch of a brilliant mission builder.

Wanted to give you a quick headsup too about a possible bug in the escort mission to St-Lo (mission 8?): I tried the mission twice. The first time, I reached Cherbourg before meeting up with the bombers. While reflying, I checked my position using the 'mark position on kneeboard' function, just to be sure. Turns out I was quite far to the West of the planned track, which might have caused me to miss the RV during the first try. After correcting for the crosstrack error, I succesfully met up with the bombers. I'm pretty sure I flew the briefed magnetic headings quite accurately both times. Perhaps an error snuck into the briefed headings? A wrong transposition from true to magnetic heading? That or a strong NE-wind (which does not seem to add up with the Westerlies blowing at Chailey during this mission)

Two additional questions, if not for you, perhaps for another P-51 enthusiast in the forum:

- The P51's wing tanks seem not to feed while on the ground? If I check feed of the wingtanks while warming up the engine, fuel pressure drops after a minute or so. They feed fine in flight, though. Is this something I missed in the manual? Perhaps the wing tanks only feed off the engine driven fuel pump, idling on the ground at 1200 rpm might not generate sufficient suction for them to feed into the fuel system?

- I'm also looking for reading tips, if anyone has any to spare. (I devoured 'The Big Show' several times already, I look forward to tackling that campaign after I've bought and finished Debden Eagles as well ) Any tips for reading material? Readily available US fighter command pilot memoirs or narrative histories?

Reflected, You've gained a huge fan here! Looking forward tremendously to continuing this campaign, then onto Debden Eagles and the Big Show. Who knows, I might eventually even pick up and study the Tomcat or Phantom just to experience your campaigns for those!

Best regards,

Jef

Edited January 13 by CaptainCernick

[Chipwich]

I think that you are correct about the drop tanks not having enough pressure at idle.  On page 21 (PDF22) of the pilot's training manual that is included in both the BNB and Debden Eagles campaigns, there is a mention of the drop tanks being pressurized to 5 PSI by venting to the vacuum pump exhaust. Regardless, the drop tanks are a nice thing to have for realism sake, but not really needed for this campaign as I recall, since you aren't going to Berlin.  The aux tank usually hits 25 gallons about the time you go feet dry on the continent, at which time you switch to drop tanks.  But those get pickled at first contact, or before if you have lagged behind your flight.  Then, I usually go 10 mins a side on the main tanks, beginning with the RHS, since the LHS was used for takeoff.  YMMV.

I think that I read that there was 10 degrees magnetic declination on the Channel map. I'm not sure about the Normandy maps, but expect something similar.

My favorite book for the 4th FG (Debden Eagles) is '1000 Destroyed: The Life and Times of the 4th Fighter Group' by Grover Cleveland.  It's out of print, but there are many second-hand copies available online.  The book was recommended by my uncle, who was a B-17G toggler on a few of the missions escorted by the 4th, including the shuttle missions that are discussed.  Cleveland does an excellent job of documenting not only the 4th's WW2 operations in England, but also of the pilots' personalities, victories, and losses. Reflected's Debden Eagles doc page 15 lists this book and others as recommended reading.

Edited January 17 by Chipwich

[Waffle 1-1]

On 1/13/2025 at 10:32 PM, CaptainCernick said:

Readily available US fighter command pilot memoirs or narrative histories?

I also liked Thunderbolt! By Robert Johnson, First Light by Geoffrey Wellum and I am now reading Dumb but Lucky! by Richard Curtis.

[Reflected]

On 1/14/2025 at 5:32 AM, CaptainCernick said:

Hi Reflected,

First of all: Wow. BNOB is an awesome campaign. Best fun I've had flightsimming for a few years!
It's allowing me to build confidence with the P51, even if I still regularly have to refly a mission after having allowed a 109 to gain my tail. The immersion built into the campaign is great. You've clearly done a lot of research on WW2 aviation and it shows in every little detail.

I Loved (capital L) every mission so far, but my last was the Pointe du Hoc mission. It even surpassed what I experienced in the previous missions. The sheer amount of AAA at the target was awesome and at once intensely scary to behold. Bouncing some 190's after my bombing run was a nice extra. (them being occupied by Spitfires made it a relatively easy and risk free bonus episode to the mission, which was great for a ham-fisted dogfighter like me:)

This was already pretty great, but what elevated the mission to a whole new level for me, were the details worked into it:
Flying out, I had already semi-consciously noted that there was more interference on the radio than in previous missions. The wheezing and scratching in my headphones eventually faded into a German propaganda broadcast (lord Haw Haw?) halfway across the channel, followed by a flippant retort by one of my flight members. This interlude made for a brilliant secondary story to the tension building, hurtling along at wavetop height in anticipation of reaching the French coast. 
Flying back: the kneeboard briefing directed me to climb to 10.000 feet on the way back. Incidentally, the tops of the 3/4 cloud layer were between 9,5k and 10k. Surfing the clouds bathed in the soft hues of the sunrise made for one of the most memorable experiences I've had in 25 years of flightsimming. This coincidence of weather, time of day and flight plan might have been lucky, but I think it feels like the touch of a brilliant mission builder.

Wanted to give you a quick headsup too about a possible bug in the escort mission to St-Lo (mission 8?): I tried the mission twice. The first time, I reached Cherbourg before meeting up with the bombers. While reflying, I checked my position using the 'mark position on kneeboard' function, just to be sure. Turns out I was quite far to the West of the planned track, which might have caused me to miss the RV during the first try. After correcting for the crosstrack error, I succesfully met up with the bombers. I'm pretty sure I flew the briefed magnetic headings quite accurately both times. Perhaps an error snuck into the briefed headings? A wrong transposition from true to magnetic heading? That or a strong NE-wind (which does not seem to add up with the Westerlies blowing at Chailey during this mission)

Two additional questions, if not for you, perhaps for another P-51 enthusiast in the forum:

- The P51's wing tanks seem not to feed while on the ground? If I check feed of the wingtanks while warming up the engine, fuel pressure drops after a minute or so. They feed fine in flight, though. Is this something I missed in the manual? Perhaps the wing tanks only feed off the engine driven fuel pump, idling on the ground at 1200 rpm might not generate sufficient suction for them to feed into the fuel system?

- I'm also looking for reading tips, if anyone has any to spare. (I devoured 'The Big Show' several times already, I look forward to tackling that campaign after I've bought and finished Debden Eagles as well ) Any tips for reading material? Readily available US fighter command pilot memoirs or narrative histories?

Reflected, You've gained a huge fan here! Looking forward tremendously to continuing this campaign, then onto Debden Eagles and the Big Show. Who knows, I might eventually even pick up and study the Tomcat or Phantom just to experience your campaigns for those!

Best regards,

Jef

Hey Jet, sorry I've just seen this. I just double checked the headings, and they're correct, they're the magnetic heading to the R/V point. There are many other variables though: crosswind factor, or maybe your directional gyro was off a bit to begin with? I always check it against the info bar after startup.

As for the external tanks, you need the engine running above a certain RPM to drive the pump that feeds fuel from them. Idling at 1000 RPM is not enough.

Anyhow, thank you for the kind words, I'm really glad you enjoyed the experience, and thank you for sharing your impressions. There are several great memoirs written by USAAF pilots, my favorites are Thunderbolt by Robert Johnson, Tumult in the Clouds by Jim Goodson and Ace in a Day by Wayne Blickenstaff.

Good luck with your next campaigns, they may not offer as 'balanced' an experience as BNBOB does, because most of them are historical campaigns, while BNBOB is historical fiction. But hopefully you're going to like them even more because of it.