FLYABLE B-17F FLYING FORTRESS

For P38-J slot

based on the idea of Pretzel

FOREWORD:

I always was caught up with this big B-17, even more after I saw it on display at an air show 3 years ago near Zurich.
As I discovered a flyable version within EAW, I was going for that warbird and asked tons of questions to improve my knowledge over the sim and its structure etc.
Finally I've ended up with "my" first collection and modification package, driven by demand from the EAW community.

Hopefully it will reach the high standard of the EAW community!
Thanks for downloading!!

CREDITS and THANKS to:

-PRETZEL for the main-,hangar and picplane screen
-Captain Kurt for B17 skin, first released for the flyable B17 in the Midway scenario
-Moggy & "The Firm" for the working and controllable propellers
 and always answering my questions
-Ralf "Knegel" Kraeft for his help on the FM/DM
 and his endless support to the EAW community with realism patches
-Pobs for his new bombsight. !! You really jumped in at the right time !!
-vonBeerhofen for the "last minute" help on a hangar screen issue
-FlyRight for answering my questions at the very beginning of this little project
-Andy, Col.Gibbon & Chompy for guiding me trough all the uncountable files within the
 cdf's
-Meatwater and Serb for their sounds
-Jeroen van Soest for EAW Aircraft Edit and Mr.Jelly for Airgrid
-Paulo Morais for CDF and WSP tools
-Sandbagger for hosting all our work and his effort to the community

!! WITHOUT YOU GUYS, THIS PACKAGE COULD NOTHAVE BEEN DONE !!
I REALY WOULD HAVE BEEN LOST IN OUTER SPACE.
TO MANY FILES AND PROGS FOR EAW (-;


CONTENT OF THIS PACKAGE AND A FEW NOTES:

-Skin-pack and B17-F by Captain Kurt and Moggy & "The Firm"
 It is possible to control engine 1&2 and 3&4 by keyboard
 or by throttle assignment in the eaw.ini file for all 4 engines simultaneously.

-Main, hangar, pic-plane screens from Pretzel
-Added altered versions of picplna.mnu & fsmplane.wsp
 to get the correct B-17 text and plane pic.
-Added vonBeerhofen's P38prop.wsp to get rid of the ugly bar on the hangar screen

-Knegels P38J.FLT & Pretzels planes.dat
 Based on these two files for a flyable B-17 I did some re-work on:
 1.Gun data (Joystick control for nose gunner)  
 2.Corrections to positions for all the visible muzzle fires for 
   defencive gunners. They will show up their skills under attack!
 3.Aircraft type (variable bomber sound according throttle position)
 4.Resizing plane view within the loadout selection screen
 5.All other flt files out of Knegel's OAWrp2.2 to get realistic relationship between the slots.

-loadout.dat from Moggy "The Firm"
 to get optional loadout
 24 x 100Lb Bombs
 16 x 250Lb Bombs
 12 x 500Lb Bombs
 6 x 1000Lb Bombs
 With the initial loadout.dat from Pretzel, I suffered from CTD's
 when stepping through the loadout selection on other planes.

-gunsight.spt & default_gunsight.spt from Pretzel
 Renaming the default_gunsight.spt into gunsight.spt will give you
 the standard gunsight out of a P38J.
 The nose armament was controlled by a gunner, so no gunsight was needed (-;

-Bomber-Sound files from Meatwater and Serb
 My goal was to achieve variable engine sounds and a nice start-up sound for the engines.
 By changing the aircraft type from bomber to fighter
 (Disabling inline engine enables sound #30 & #31)
 I copied the Meatwater bomber sound #43 to #31 and copied B17 start-up sound
 by Serb to sound #30.
 You can play around with different settings within the EAW setup
 to get a god mixture on internal and external sound level.
 It depends on the add. sound & speech packs you have installed.



 I would like to add a few notes concerning my questions on
 the individual control of all 4 engines, which were answered by Moggy.
 Maybe this will help for further work on those kinds of skins.

 Q:
 We all know that EAW was not developed to fly planes with 4 engines
 but is there a work-around to achieve all 4 props spinning
 and shutting down, #1+2 and #3+4?
 The check-box "quad engines" in EAW Aircraft Edit takes no effect
 of the engines, but perhaps it was intended to characterise
 the non-flyable planes.

 A:
 The real problem here is probably that EAW does not have the proper
 code support in the exe for a flyable four engined aircraft. So we have
 to use a "work around".
 Solution from Moggy "the Firm":
 They changed the numbers on the prop 3dz inserts, so instead of having
 1, 2, 3, and 4 we actually have 2 x1 and 2 x 2.
 This way we separate control over the engines on each wing, but again
 no individual control. The programme code treats the aircraft as if
 it were a two engine aircraft, but the model has two copies of each.
 The wing view is based on U and Y files.


INSTALLATION:

Use either OAW, to-days most advanced EAW managing tool from Mr. Jelly
OR
use a individual installation just for this B-17! 

The following procedure describes the individual installation for this B-17!

1.Setup a clean EAW installation (no add-on's)
  I named the folder and also the shortcut on my desktop "European Air War B-17"
  I prefer to apply also patch V1.2.

2.Inside the "CBFlyableB17.zip" is the 'CB's Flyable B-17' folder.
Unzip the 'CBFlyableB17.zip' into the "European Air War B-17" folder you created.
You now have the "CB's Flyable B-17" folder, which is subdivided into different folders, which give a better over-view of the files and their usage.

The sub-folders in the "CB's Flyable B-17":
-B-17 Skin
-B-17 Skin & Standard Cockpit
-B17 Bombsight
-Realistic FM-DM & loadout
-Screens
-Sounds

3.Copy all the files into the "European Air War B-17" root folder
    to substitute the default files out of the CDF's and you are set.
    The B-17 Bombsight alternative but it is a MUST HAVE!!

NOTE:
The "CBFlyableB17PCX-shots.zip" contains the 'CB's Flyable B-17 PCX & Screenshots' folder, which has all collected PCX files for further modifications.

Unzip the "CBFlyableB17PCX-shots.zip". The folders you can use in the "CB's Flyable B-17 PCX & Screenshots" folder are:

-PCX Files Bombsight Cockpit
-PCX Files Plane & Standard Cockpit (Please read the readme pcx.txt)
-PCX Files Screens
-Screenshots


FLY THE B-17:

1.Launch the SIM 
2.Select "single mission" to get loadout options or "instant action" without loadout
3.Select "USA"
4.Select B-17F slot
5.Select armament ("single mission only" and select different bomb loads)
6.Fly mission AND ENJOY THE BOMBSIGHT
--> It is possible to select also "mission parameters"


Take-Off:
1.Under max. bomb load extend flaps to the 2-nd stage
2.Push nose down a bit to avoid tail bumbing
3.Accelerate approx. up to 190-200km/h befor you take the nose up

The initial climbing rate with full load is approximately 300m/min,
with max continuous duty approximately 240m/min
Vmax at ground level: approx. 340km/h
Vmax in 7600m height: approx. 430km/h
Vmax in 9000m height: approx. 450km/h

ADDITIONAL MODS:

I use following add. mods to enhance the sim

-Max188's Effect Pack
-Max188's Flames
-Max188's Peoples
-Max188's Skys and Clouds
-Max188's Airfields (Summer)
-Pob's Flames
-Pob's Panzer (Summer)
-vonObens Windmillkill-Trees
-vonObens Summer Trees 
-vonOben's European Summer V4
-vonBeerhofen's Moon, Splash, Superblast, Impact Effects

MORE INFORMATIONS ON B-17:
===========================

http://www.zenoswarbirdvideos.com/main.html


Enjoy flying the B-17!!


Christian Benz / 27.07.2003

CB
SimHQ Member #: 9565
Readme CB's Flyable B-17.rtf	4 / 5	18/07/03 16:39

