These are emails from Korean War Vets about flying the A/B-26

John about Kunsun:-

The runway was asphalt in 1951 when I was there. When Charley Hinton was there in 1952, they closed down operations at K-8, moved to another base, and upgraded it to handle jets. I don't know what material was used but Charley will know. Its probably not worth changing.
The seaward end of the runway ended at the mud flats (no rice paddy). There was seawater at high tide and mud flats that went far out at low tide. I'm talking about maybe a couple hundred feet to water. We had a bird come back from a mission with hydraulics shot out. He didn't know but the compressed air bottle he was counting on for brakes, was capped off between the bottle and the system. He rolled out on the mud flats a ways and they brought him back with the old Cletrac.
The whole base was on a hard crust on a soft base. When they rolled the 500 lb bombs off the back of the 6 X 6, it jarred the ground for a ways. Must have given the engineers fits.
John

----- Original Message -----
From: John W. Harris
To: Marv H
Sent: Saturday, December 07, 2002 8:58 PM
Subject: Re: Flt Sim Adjustments


I don't really want it on my laptop. I just want to try to install it to see if I can. Another challenge.
I guess I just keep trying to get the airplane airborne at a reasonable speed. The sim wants to come off at about 140. That's about 20 or more than for real. So far I haven't noticed any overlap into anything else on the pitch number change.
I flew about thirty three of my real missions out of Kunsan where they had a soft blacktop runway of 4200 feet. Takeoff procedure was to taxi as close to the end as possible and turn around trying to stay on pavement. Line it up, go 52 inches MP, release brakes and hope rudder was sufficient to maintain directional control. If not, retard one throttle as needed. Last resort, brake. When the end green lights went out of sight under the nose (still a little way out because of the long nose), pull and hope. It always worked!!! The end of the runway ended at the water when the tide was in. Dark out there. I was a 1st Lt. with little experience and no training prior to shipping over. I took off once and a gun door popped open on top of the right wing. I flew the pattern, landed, had the door closed and departed again. Later, I was told how stupid I was. (?) I said someone should have told me. "Good judgment is frequently learned as a result of bad judgment".
They always loaded every available space & rack on the airplane. They even "double hung" 260 lb frags with 500 lb gps. I never checked weight & balance. Just flew what they told me.
'Scuse me. Didn't mean to wander.
John

I tried the scalar setting at 1.5 and I'd swear it is more like the airplane. If it gets off shorter, its not by much. An old standard of mine (one of the few I remember) was indicated speed at 3500 feet at climb power of 42/2400. I used to check each new arrival back from IRAN and they all were very close to 335 indicated. I've got 280 and 295 with the B & C on the sim. The sim airplanes have more drag. Ours were pretty clean at Vance AFB where I did the checking. A lightly loaded Douglas B-26 was a real hot rod.

John W. Harris
1900 Smokey Hollow Rd.
Edmond, OK 73013-6808

The airplane had bomb bay spoilers that were sometimes used to reduce airpeed. I believe there were three wide pieces of metal that folded laterally. A flick of the bomb bay switch to "Open" then back to neutral caused the spoilers to deploy without opening the doors. I only did that when I knew I would open the doors soon anyway. It was easy to forget them and drag them forever. When you had time for that, you were proficient. At low airspeeds such as in the landing pattern, I don't think it would be worth the effort. At 300+ you could feel it pretty good. A short burst of 14 fifties worked good too.
For drag on landing, the last bit of flap (38degrees to full, maybe) was really throwing out the anchor. Its not noticeable on the sim, but really worked for real. You decelerate quickly with that last power reduction, consequently chicken guys carried power through touchdown. The short runways we worked with caused you to consider that. I closed the throttles in the flare and accepted something less than a squeeker to get where the brakes worked.
John
----- Original Message -----

From: "John W. Harris"
To: "Marv H" ; "Charles Hinton"
Sent: Tuesday, December 10, 2002 10:51 PM
Subject: Re: Dive Brakes???


> The bomb bay spoilers did actuate with the door, but they always
> opened before the door. I don't know this for sure, but I'll bet there was
a
> "hydraulic micro-switch" that made the doors wait until full extension of
> the spoilers before they started opening. After all, the spoilers were
> supposed to do just what you said, Charlie, and to do that they had to
come
> out first. They did a good job. There was no airspeed restriction on the
> doors. Unusual! I did have a frag cluster bang into the rear bulkhead
once.
> Never figured out why. There were half a dozen little rectangular holes in
> the bottom of the fuselage where little bombs tumbled along. The cluster
> probably opened up at release (or sooner).
> They were handy in formation when your overtake was too great. Every
> little bit helped!
> John
>





Charlie about A26 performance:-

Greetings Gzrs -

I have been on vacation for 2 weeks and just got to read the email
conversations among you about the performance of the bird. I read the
discussion and forwarded them to John Harris for his enlightenment.

I would like to suggest that you include John Harris (jwharris@cox.net) in
the discussion as a cc: John was eager to start flying the model, has been
flying it for about 3 weeks or more, and with a combat tour in the
airplane has a good memory of how the real airplane performed. I know that
you want the model to perform like the real one and he is your best source
for realism.

I note you fiddling with the fine tuning of the power section, and John
says the air plane was a really spritely performer. The only other
airplane of that day that matched it in capability in straight and level
speed was the P-51. We had a short runway at K-8 and flew the airplane way
over gross for much of the war so it had to be a performer. Chrly

Hey Guys -

I'm just an old navigator, but let me throw in something for you. A couple
of emails back there was a discussion about

"Landings are impossible below 150 mph as the nose drops and cannot be
lifted back up to get a flare."

I remember something from the training film about flying the A-26 and how
it is landed differently than other aircraft like the B-25. Someplace I
still have that video. I went to my 1945 dash 1 and I read the following
in regard to the nose gear, "The A-26 is a rugged, heavy, high-speed
airplane but it lands differently from any other airplane. It lands and
takes off in an almost level attitude. A nose-high landing attitude
quickly stalls out and pounds the nose gear on the runway causing failure."

I have a 1955 standardization handbook that says about takeoff, " As soon
as you have positive elevator control (85-90 MPH) raise weight off the nose
wheel. As soon as the nose wheel is off the ground and the airspeed
continues to build up, the back pressure should be relaxed slightly so as
to maintain a nose low attitude. DO NOT PULL THE AIRCRAFT OFF THE
RUNWAY. Allow it to fly itself off in a nose low attitude. Do not
hesitate to use almost all of a runway to insure a smooth take off. Normal
take-off speed is 120 - 125 MPH, however do not set speed to firmly in you
mind as the speed at which you must leave the ground.
.......... REMEMBER, the B-26 flies itself off the ground"

For landing the book gives all the instructions for flying the pattern -
speed 160 mph downwind and the landing 150 mph on final

I had hoped I would avoid this, but it looks like I need to scan you all
some parts of the standardization manual if you are going to get it
right. I thought surely you guys would already have this. Maybe it is
not possible to re-create the bird in the simulation.

Chrly

Bless your heart, Charlie. Now I can stop straining my memory, which
isn't all that great anyway.
All is true and correct. Squeeker landings in the 26 are figments of
imagination. KLUMP! is probably more accurate, sort of like a Piper
Comanche. CFS2 landings are very of like that. The flatter you fly it on,
the better, except maybe for real short runways. I thought I got a good one
once, but I'm not sure.
Good letter, Charlie!
John

Sim 26 landings, same here. The best ones come when not trying to hold
it off to slow down. This gets to be real fun on a wet, short blacktop. the
26 got a reputetion for gaining more speed under such circumstances.
I'm talking "real" now. Wherever the nose is at touchdown, it
immediately falls through at touch down. About one in a hundred when you
just happened to be making a large up pitch correction as the mains touched,
the nose might favor you by hanging momemtarily. When I landed that one time
with a full bomb load, I held the nose up and lowered it when I wanted to.
The CG is well aft when loaded. To see that, salvo a full load in flight.
Much up trim needed soon.
John