B-17 G Hires updated # 2 version for European Air War.

This skin represents "VICIOUS VIRGIN", a B-17 F-45-BO, S-N 42-5341, from the 303rd BG, 427th BS, based at Molesworth, August 1943, Piloted by Lt. Robert J. Hullar.  

This was one of the two aircraft that Hullar's crew were regularly assigned to, and it was in this aircraft that they completed their tour of 25 missions.  It was a popular aircraft because of it's reliability and extra speed over the G models, and was usually used as a squadron / group lead aircraft, piloted by the most experienced crews of the 427th BS.  During the six month period of their tour from August 12th 1943 to February 20th 1944, the 303rd BG lost 37 B-17's with their crews.  Vicous Virgin somehow survived the bombing offensive, completing ?? missions, before it was pensioned off as a target towing aircraft for the 303rd in mid 1944. 

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** Now featuring engines that shut down when they should!! ** This model has a slightly tweaked 3dz to better suit the nose gun positions for this aircraft, and also corrects some rendering issues.

Instalation.
Extract all the .tpc and .3dz files to your EAW folder, or if using a skin/file manager, refer to it's instructions.  This zip has been optimized for OAW use - simply ensure winzip's "use folder path" is checked, then extract the files to your OAW folder, and the skin will be put in an "A-06 HR F 303rd Vicious" folder.

Extras included but not needed for instalation -
I've included both the batchfiles for PCX to TPC, and TPC to PCX for any prospective skinners out there, and a screenie.  To use the Batchfiles, just place the files you want to convert, the Batchfiles, and the Picpac / gpmtpc2pcx.exe's all in the same folder, and double click the batchfile.  If you don't have Picpac.exe or gpmtpc2pcx.exe, they are available at my Ad-ons page at Sandbaggers.

The skin uses an experimental "dithered" base layer to achieve the faded olive drab look.  This will cause some rippling or 'moire' effect at certain angles, but I think it's not a huge problem, and the 'new' colour makes it worth some hassles.  Thanks to Andy, FreddyB, Skylark, Claudio, VonBeerhofen, Tachyon and Crashin Jack, who all helped with suggestions aiming to fix this problem.

Credits.  Big thanks go to -
Col. Gibbon for the original HR-B-17 3dz, and for some of it's textures.
+mia for the use of some textures, and the BUMP I needed to finish this.
Mosi for another timely BUMP,
Illu for the radio wire idea,
Charles, Andy + Pobs for the transparent shadow idea.
Sandbagger (in advance!) for hosting the skin.
RAF Dumoulin for putting me onto the book named below.
Mr Johnson for discovering how to fix the HR engine shutdown issues.
3dz mods and skin done by myself.

References-
"Half a wing, three engines and a prayer" by Brian D. O'Neill
303rd Bomb Group Website - http://www.303rdbga.com/

If you have any problems, questions, comments or hatemail don't hesitate to contact me, either at the SimHQ EAW message board, or by Email.
Enjoy!

John "Chompy" Masters,
3rd July 2005.
jdmasters@ozemail.com.au
http://www.sandbaggeruk.com/chompy.html
