In the cockpit I see no radio that cover the frequencies usually used for com and nav radios. Only ADF frequencies and som short wave (HF). I am told to use Shift 6 where the normal com and nav frequencies can be set.
Does this mean that the radio operator sitting somewhere in the plane has radios not available to the pilots ? Or is it a step away from realism ? Was these frequencies used during WW2 ?
Radio question
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- Senior Master Sergeant
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Re: Radio question
Hi Janf.
In the real B17 , the radio operator was in a compartment behind the bombbay , and in combat he would man the gun in the glass window facing aft on top off the fuselage , and the navigator was fwd of the two pilots in same compartment as the bombardier , and in the early years of the war , navigation was dead reconning , with stopwatch , drift meter , and the compass , over water they used a sextant , in the later years of the war some B17s where fitted with LORAN navigation for the US and GEE for britsh B17s and this helped with navigation and blind bombing , the radios of the day was mainly coms , and not very good , any long range coms in the B17 ment winding out a long trailing antenna under the fuselage , A2A due sim restrictions did the coms/vor/dme/adf in the popup window , so you can either fly it as WW2 or in VATSIM as a modified present day WW2 bird , the ADF in the roof is ADF2 by default , pressing the button changes it to ADF1 , but then to get the button back out , you need to reselect ADF2 or VOR1 or 2 in the shift+6 window , it would have been easier had this button been made push and release change over switch for ADF 1/2 , as for the ILS , this was used on B17 aircraft during WW2 in the USA only as an early landing aide , that was in its infancy .
Cockpit comms in WW2 are the 3 boxes above the ADF on the roof , mainly used for short range comms from pilot to tower during taxi/takeoff/landing and aircraft to aircraft in formation when needed , but these are usless in the sim as the freq these can use are not compatable with modern comms.
regards Alan.
In the real B17 , the radio operator was in a compartment behind the bombbay , and in combat he would man the gun in the glass window facing aft on top off the fuselage , and the navigator was fwd of the two pilots in same compartment as the bombardier , and in the early years of the war , navigation was dead reconning , with stopwatch , drift meter , and the compass , over water they used a sextant , in the later years of the war some B17s where fitted with LORAN navigation for the US and GEE for britsh B17s and this helped with navigation and blind bombing , the radios of the day was mainly coms , and not very good , any long range coms in the B17 ment winding out a long trailing antenna under the fuselage , A2A due sim restrictions did the coms/vor/dme/adf in the popup window , so you can either fly it as WW2 or in VATSIM as a modified present day WW2 bird , the ADF in the roof is ADF2 by default , pressing the button changes it to ADF1 , but then to get the button back out , you need to reselect ADF2 or VOR1 or 2 in the shift+6 window , it would have been easier had this button been made push and release change over switch for ADF 1/2 , as for the ILS , this was used on B17 aircraft during WW2 in the USA only as an early landing aide , that was in its infancy .
Cockpit comms in WW2 are the 3 boxes above the ADF on the roof , mainly used for short range comms from pilot to tower during taxi/takeoff/landing and aircraft to aircraft in formation when needed , but these are usless in the sim as the freq these can use are not compatable with modern comms.
regards Alan.
Re: Radio question
But did they have ADF even back then ? There is controls for ADF in the roof. So would using ADF beacons be realistic even during WW2 ?alan CXA651 wrote: ↑03 Jun 2021, 00:11 Hi Janf.
In the real B17 , the radio operator was in a compartment behind the bombbay , and in combat he would man the gun in the glass window facing aft on top off the fuselage , and the navigator was fwd of the two pilots in same compartment as the bombardier , and in the early years of the war , navigation was dead reconning , with stopwatch , drift meter , and the compass , over water they used a sextant , in the later years of the war some B17s where fitted with LORAN navigation for the US and GEE for britsh B17s and this helped with navigation and blind bombing , the radios of the day was mainly coms , and not very good , any long range coms in the B17 ment winding out a long trailing antenna under the fuselage , A2A due sim restrictions did the coms/vor/dme/adf in the popup window , so you can either fly it as WW2 or in VATSIM as a modified present day WW2 bird , the ADF in the roof is ADF2 by default , pressing the button changes it to ADF1 , but then to get the button back out , you need to reselect ADF2 or VOR1 or 2 in the shift+6 window , it would have been easier had this button been made push and release change over switch for ADF 1/2 , as for the ILS , this was used on B17 aircraft during WW2 in the USA only as an early landing aide , that was in its infancy .
Cockpit comms in WW2 are the 3 boxes above the ADF on the roof , mainly used for short range comms from pilot to tower during taxi/takeoff/landing and aircraft to aircraft in formation when needed , but these are usless in the sim as the freq these can use are not compatable with modern comms.
regards Alan.
What is a drift meter ?
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- Senior Master Sergeant
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Re: Radio question
Hi Janf.
Yes they had a kund of ADF , look under the belly just fwd of bombbay doors the loop direction finder is inside that teardrop shaped antenna , if you google WW2 b17 you can find the radio and nav equipment that was fitted to them.
The driftmeter can be found by the same search , there where different kinds fitted , but basically , it was a tube going out of the aircraft , the navigator would look into the scope which had parallel lines on it , he would rotate these lines untill objects on the grould pass along them , he then read the degrees of drift from this and either tell the captain to steer say 5 degrees pos or neg from present course , this would counteract the wind direction to stay on course , full discriptions and videos can be found by googling on the use of the different types in use during WW2..
regards Alan.
Yes they had a kund of ADF , look under the belly just fwd of bombbay doors the loop direction finder is inside that teardrop shaped antenna , if you google WW2 b17 you can find the radio and nav equipment that was fitted to them.
The driftmeter can be found by the same search , there where different kinds fitted , but basically , it was a tube going out of the aircraft , the navigator would look into the scope which had parallel lines on it , he would rotate these lines untill objects on the grould pass along them , he then read the degrees of drift from this and either tell the captain to steer say 5 degrees pos or neg from present course , this would counteract the wind direction to stay on course , full discriptions and videos can be found by googling on the use of the different types in use during WW2..
regards Alan.
Re: Radio question
It comes to my mind that there is an ILS instrument in the cockpit. Did they have that but not VOR ? How did that work compared to a modern ILS ?alan CXA651 wrote: ↑03 Jun 2021, 10:23 Hi Janf.
Yes they had a kund of ADF , look under the belly just fwd of bombbay doors the loop direction finder is inside that teardrop shaped antenna , if you google WW2 b17 you can find the radio and nav equipment that was fitted to them.
The driftmeter can be found by the same search , there where different kinds fitted , but basically , it was a tube going out of the aircraft , the navigator would look into the scope which had parallel lines on it , he would rotate these lines untill objects on the grould pass along them , he then read the degrees of drift from this and either tell the captain to steer say 5 degrees pos or neg from present course , this would counteract the wind direction to stay on course , full discriptions and videos can be found by googling on the use of the different types in use during WW2..
regards Alan.
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- Senior Master Sergeant
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Re: Radio question
Hi Janf.
The ILS worked more or less like the modern ones , but it was only used in the USA in WW2 as it was in its infancy , and not many airports had it from what i can remember , once they where posted overseas this instrument might have been used as an aide to the air base with no glide slope aide , landing would have been by Mk1 eyeball .
regards Alan.
The ILS worked more or less like the modern ones , but it was only used in the USA in WW2 as it was in its infancy , and not many airports had it from what i can remember , once they where posted overseas this instrument might have been used as an aide to the air base with no glide slope aide , landing would have been by Mk1 eyeball .
regards Alan.
- SeattleSleeper
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Re: Radio question
Prior to the implementation of ILS in the ETO, the DREM lighting system (named for RAF Drem, West Fenton Aerodrome , where it was first implemented) was used for bad weather approaches.
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