How about a simple Challenge Flight for us Niners?

[TomPenDragon]

Wow!  I wish I had found this thread sooner.

 

Congratulations to all the participants, especially ScottishMike (and his team) for winning and ViperPilot2 for coming up with the idea in the first place.  I'm eagerly waiting to join the next round.  In the meantime, I took a crack at the Bendix...

 

Friday, 13 October, 2023

Three O'God in the morning

 

The alarm clock on the nightstand next to the bed in the rented bungalow blares a non-descript pop song, perhaps from the '90's, I'm not really sure.  My hand whacks the snooze bar angrily, only to turn that anger inward as arthritis pain shoots through the joints at the base of the fingers of my left hand, into my wrist, and up my arm to my shoulder.

 

Well, at least I'm awake.

 

I sit up, rub the sore hand with the good one, and quickly shut off the alarm to avoid hearing that insipid song again.

 

My flight bag is right behind the clock, and I reach into it for my tablet.  It geolocates to Santa Monica, California, USA.  KSMOh, this is what I'm doing up at such a ridiculous hour.  I've got a race to run!  Well, not a race, not really - that's already been run and won.  But, I'm in SoCal checking on the progress of a new aircraft that I ordered in the spring and I've got an extra day. so I figured I'd run the course and see how I would have done.

 

Let's see what the weather's doing this morning...

 

... and winds aloft, FL350...

 

 

I'm glad I'm heading from LA to Cleveland and not the other way around.

 

At that moment, the aroma of coffee hits my nostrils - I had set it up last night to start brewing at the same time as the alarm sounded, so that if the noise didn't rouse me, the smell would.  I grab my thermos from the flight bag and head to the kitchen.  Fortunately, it's a full-sized coffeemaker, not one of those little hotel things, so I can fill my thermos to the brim and still get a full mug for right now.

 

Morning necessities taken care of, clothes and flight suit put on, coffee chugged, and mouth and tongue scalded, I head out to The Beast...

 

 

...The Ultrabolt.  She wears the colors of Escuadron 201, the Mexican Air Force unit that fought alongside the Allies in World War II and helped liberate the Philippines.  I take more care than usual with my external pre-flight.  My 'Bolt's going to be working hard today.

 

I hop in the cockpit - no, strike that, I climb up onto the wing and tnen lift myself into the cockpit gingerly.  I'm not 25 anymore.

 

 

Battery, cockpit lights, recognition lights on... Yeah.

Brakes set... Yeah.

Fuel control to full rich... Yeah.

Fuel pump on... Yeah.

Prime... Yeah,

Mags to both... Yeah.

Press starter... Yeah.

Watch lights come on in every house in a 10-block radius... Oh Yeah!

 

This is why I'm flying The Beast:  Water.cooled V-12's might put out as much HP, purr like kittens, and ultimately be more practical for today's mission,  but nothing sounds so much of raw, straight-from-the-nethers power as a BAR (Big-...Radial).  Whenever I see one on the ramp, I can't help but check under the lucky aircraft's tail for a pair of bright chrome Trucknutz.

 

And the R-4360 in this plane's prominent proboscis is the King of Radials.  Lesser aircraft run on 100LL.  The Ultrabolt runs on testosterone.

 

It's a quick taxi to 21, checking the mags and lubing the prop hub while I go.  As soon as the oil is in the green, I pop the cowl flaps open fully - the 4360 produces even more heat than it does horsepower.  Line up...  Push the throttle forward...  The Beast goes from low, menacing growl to a howl of blind rage.  As I see lights come on in houses at the end of the runway and beyond, I'm reminded of a line from an old Alice Cooper song:

 

"Wake up the neighbors with the roar of a teenage heavy metal elephant gun,"

 

What was the name of that song?  Ah, yes: "Guilty"

 

Then I guess I am,

I'm guilty.  I'm guilty.

 

(And now I'm going to have that song in my head from here to Cleveland...)

 

 

[jgf]

Welcome to our little group, Tom.  Good luck on the flight.

[taoftedal]

19 hours ago, TomPenDragon said:

 

This is why I'm flying The Beast:  Water.cooled V-12's might put out as much HP, purr like kittens, and ultimately be more practical for today's mission,  but nothing sounds so much of raw, straight-from-the-nethers power as a BAR (Big-...Radial).  Whenever I see one on the ramp, I can't help but check under the lucky aircraft's tail for a pair of bright chrome Trucknutz.

 

And the R-4360 in this plane's prominent proboscis is the King of Radials.  Lesser aircraft run on 100LL.  The Ultrabolt runs on testosterone.

 

It's a quick taxi to 21, checking the mags and lubing the prop hub while I go.  As soon as the oil is in the green, I pop the cowl flaps open fully - the 4360 produces even more heat than it does horsepower.  Line up...  Push the throttle forward...  The Beast goes from low, menacing growl to a howl of blind rage. 

 

 

 

Be safe ... and save that engine!  (Well ... have a little fun at the same time)! 

[defaid]

Hi.

 

For the next challenge, so that I don't have to deal with perpetual headwinds while everyone else is blessed, can someone explain to me how I can (legitimately, in the race context) obtain better weather.

 

NOAA provide free text metars that my engine can use, but not historical, and obviously no winds aloft.

 

Having offline weather only, I can't easily use current weather with winds aloft but I just checked SkyVector & backdated it to Friday, to see if I could use something from there. I found completely different winds at fl350 to those posted just above. What am I failing to grasp about SkyVector's planning chart?

 

D

 

[jgf]

1 minute ago, defaid said:

For the next challenge, so that I don't have to deal with perpetual headwinds while everyone else is blessed, can someone explain to me how I can (legitimately, in the race context) obtain better weather.

 

Either turn off weather or select "user defined" and set up a clear day with no winds (my choice, though with variable clouds via fsuipc).  You could even set up a little tail wind for a slight boost.

[jgf]

7 minutes ago, taoftedal said:

... and save that engine!

 

If we didn't blow those P-38 engines I think he's safe, lol.

[ViperPilot2]

I downloaded a set of Weather "Themes' from here and installed them in the Sim... they work great! 

 

 

On another Matter... Motormouse from SOH decided to take the Bendix on, and posted a Time for his first Leg yesterday, flying the Alphasim DH Hornet. I instructed him to post here in the Thread; I hope he will.

[TomPenDragon]

It's a dead-calm, clear, cool pre-morning, just the way The Beast likes it.  I move the throttle forward smoothly and gradually, pausing mid-arc for the vertical stabilizer to catch the wind and take the lateral strain off the tailwheel before bringing the manifold pressure up to 50".  She can make more power, but we don't need it here,  The tailwheel comes off the runway at around 100 mph, and as soon as it does I apply a feather's weight of back pressure onto the stick.

 

The VSI shows positive climb.  I can't feel it.  There is no clunk of the main gear struts as they go from holding the plane up to holding the wheels on the aircraft.  There's no torque or p-factor roll - or if there is, I'm compensating for it without even realizing.  For an aircraft of this size and power, the stick's remarkably light.  At least at 170-or-so mph.

 

Heat is the bane of the R-4360, and I throttle back to 42" and bring the propeller back to 2250 rpm.  The oil temperature drops back into the green arc and the CHT comes down a bit, too.  The Beast seems happy.

 

The airspeed breaks 200 mph and the temps are back into the 4360's happy place, so I shut the cowl flaps and throw her into a left turn.

 

"Good morning, Beast."

"Good morning, Tom."

"Feel like having some fun?"

"Yes, let's."

 

 

Speedo's showing 250 now, level, roll out of the turn.  Trading some airspeed for altitude to avoid KLAX's traffic.  Despite the enormous engine, The Beast is still a Thunderbolt; she climbs like a homesick gopher.  I knew this from the first time I looked into her cockpit and saw that the stock VSI was a calendar.  But she cruise-climbs like a champ.  I leave the power settings where they are and trim for about 220 - 230 mph.  The VSI fluctuates between 1000 and 1500 fpm before stabilizing at 1300.  And that's fine; I don't like pushing her harder.  The engine's nearly new and still feels a little tight as we climb, although she's running smoothly and, judging from the temps, comfortably.  Or is that my imagination, as I leave the glow of LA behind and it starts looking very dark ahead?

 

 

I barely see the San Gabriels as I pass over them.  It's almost the New Moon, and completely dark, save for the thin, stark whiteness of pinpoints of stars and the occasional glow of headlights of a lone vehicle plying the roads of the high desert.  Ideally, I should have waited another couple of weeks to make this flight - until a brilliant, full Moon would show the rugged contours of the Sierra in eerie bas-relief.  But today's significant to me; in a few hours back in Veracruz the Carrera Panamericana will be starting!  And for some odd reason, Friday the 13th's always been fortuitous for me - maybe I've got a little Addams blood...

 

 

25,000' is critical atltitude for the engine,so i begin adding throttle to keep the manifold pressure at 42".  Passing 30,000, trimming to maintain airspeed...  at 35,000, trim to level, set the SL30, back the prop revs down to 2050...  This, now, is The Beast's lair!  Any hint of tightness or vibration is now gone; she's running smooth as a turbine.  Airspeed creeps up to 255, and the stick's now comfortably stiff - let me rephrase that; the yoke offers a good level of resistance.  Although I am rather, um, happy:  Let's see...  255 on the speedo, FL350, 29.92, -44c... 469 TAS?  Can that be true?  407 knots?  And a half?  I was right the first time.

 

It took over a hundred miles of a 500-mile leg to get up to altitude, but it was worth it.  Time for a celebratory coffee...

 

The 4360 hums along joyfully, the four big paddle blades of the prop devouring huge bites of air with every pass.  I know I could fly her harder - should fly her harder, if I'm serious about racing.  When I bought The Beast, she had less than an hour on the Hobbs, though.  I don't know how many pilots have had to break in an engine, but I do know from experience that precious few know how to do it right.  The first time you start it - assuming you can even get the thing to fire - it runs rough and you wonder if it's mis-timed.  It won't idle to save it's, or your, life.  It sounds like one of the builders left a pocketful of loose change in the cylinders.  It's as smoky as a junior high school's bathroom, and the oil smells funny.  Every airman's sense you've ever developed is telling you the bird's not airworthy.

 

"Don't baby it."  "Don't overcook it."  The performance range is as thin as the flight envelope of a U-2 at altitude.  What performance there is, of course, since the moment you throttle up, you're convinced that someone swapped your motor for one from a Cherokee 140 that was due an overhaul.  Keep the revs up but the temps down.  Bring about world peace while you're at it; it'd probably be simpler.  Keep her below 8,000'.  Keep varying the power until you're sick to your stomach...

 

But the second time you take her up, she's a little easier to start and a little less touchy.  Three or four flights in, and she's actually startng to feel like an airplane that deserves a place in your hangar.  It's not just the engine, either.  The hatch slides easier.  The controls become smoother and lighter.  Bumps and creaks and noises either go away or become familiar.  The plane's teaching you her language, and you're learning.

 

 

The lights of Vegas are off the wing.  And now, having just turned over 200 hours on the Hobbs, The Beast and I are comfortable together.  Like a married couple who's made it past the rough first years, has finally learned to cast off all of their preconceptions about what a marriage or a spouse should be, and is finally starting to see and love each other as whole, ever-changing human beings.  I've long since gotten rid of any idea of dominating The Beast.  We have a partnership, not a hierarchy.  At the risk of presuming to speak for the Beast, that's the way we both like it.

 

And  yeah, Hunter, at 35,000 feet and 400 knots, in the scant starlight, I can just make out where a very profound wave broke, just west of Vegas.  And rolled back.  A tear rolls out of the corner of my eye...  I salute Lost Wages with the last cup from my thermos.

 

Coming up on Cortez now.  If The Beast climbs like a homesick gopher, it descends like one, too.  I power back, but just to 40", and bring the prop up to 2250.  I let the nose drop naturally, then keep trimming her down until the VSI's pegged at June, er, -6, and the speedo's creeping above 350.  I take a look at my handheld GPS and it's showing a groundspeed of 468.  Oh, yeah.  The seconds I spend feeling self-satisfied with that number turns to alarm when I see that the manifold pressure's gone into the yellow, almost to 45" - less ruminating, more aviating!!

 

 

By the time I start leveling off, I'm doing nearly 400 mph, but the engine temps are fine, if slightly cool.  Runwaay 3's the active, which is convenient, if unexpected - my luck's never that good.  I throw the Beast into a couple of S-turns to bleed off speed...

 

 

Owwww!  So that's what the, "S" stands for in, "S-turn": Sciatica.

 

 

She's every bit a big-nosed warbird on approach, so I come at the field high and at an angle - call me crazy, but I'm rather fond of being able to see a runway I'm trying to land on.  Over a fence I can't see, bring the power back, drop the schnoz, drop like a rock, level out at the last possible second, keep wings level and nose straight, and pray...

 

 

Chirp!  Chirprumble!  I'm down, with a little one-hopper - not quite up to my standards for landing taildraggers, but given the fact that it was a performance landing, perfectly acceptable.  The sensor in the left main strut stops the flight time on the chronometer.  1:32...  Had I been running in the actual race, I believe that would have tied me for third for the leg.  Not bad!  And I had a blast!!

 

The one negative is that I landed with too much fuel onboard - almost half.  I took off with full tanks, and I'm sure that cost me on the climbout.  I debate just taxiing back to the active and heading to KHLC with what I've got, but I'd feel more comfortable with a splash-and-dash, so I pull The Beast up to the pumps.  The flight time is stopped, so it won't cost me.

 

 

(BS - it's costing me $7.30 a gallon)

 

One more thing, a physics conundrum:

 

Took off with a full thermos of coffee.

Drank a full thermos of coffee.

Landed with a full thermos.

(Gotta go buy a new thermos - Con  Permiso)

[motormousetoo]

Hi all, 

 

Hope you don't mind me joining in here.. for the Bendix

 

I found a nice ride ; Alphasim's DH Hornet; and succesfully completed first leg ;  used fs realwx pro; nice 8 kt tailwind, 80% prop rpm in cruise at 15,500 alt got 311kts ias  landed with 1/4 full tanks , so a little in reserve, 

 

cheers

 

ttfn

 

Pete

Edited October 16, 2023 by motormousetoo

[TomPenDragon]

About the winds, Defaid, I'm using FSRealWX, current conditions, for the flight, and SkyVector only for planning purposes.  I've never tried backdating the winds in SkyVector, so I have no idea why it's showing different data for the same day.  At least for the first leg posted above, I noticed that the winds aloft were different from what SkyVector is reporting - I would have expected a more favorable tailwind, but I was only showing a ground speed of 402 on the GPS.  If I'm right about the 407-knot TAS, I was bucking a very slight headwind.

 

I did the entire challenge in one sitting, making "pit stops" at each airport.  At now three days since I flew it, I'm realizing how much of the data I've forgotten, so my apologies to all if my recounting of it is lacking in harder facts or data - next time, I'll keep a notebook in the cockpit, I promise.  And if group decides to use a single weather theme for the next challenge, I'm fine with that - although I think the different weatherscapes adds a bit of real-world, "gnarliness," to the race.

[JSMR]

Haha love it. Everyone still joining and flying the race. 
 

[TomPenDragon]

Curiouser and curiouser...  I just downloaded SkyVector's winds aloft for the current conditions, and got this:

 

 

This is current, and looks quite similar to what you were seeing earlier, Defaid - particularly the whorl of light, unsettled airs north of Flagstaff.  I think SkyVector might have given you today's winds, even though it said that they were from Friday.  On the, "Layers," tab, there's a Beta Warning - I wonder if that's one of the things that they're talking about.

 

Just a thought:  I know your flying machine's offline, but might there be a way for you to install FSRealWX 2.0 onto it?  If so, I or someone else here can download and post the .fswx file of the current weather, which you can then transfer to your sim computer and use the "Load WX from file" option to set a complete, recent weatherscape.  Should the group decide to all use the same weather in subsequent challenges, this might be a good option as well.

 

In 12 pages, the weather seems to have been the only real "fairness" issue to come up - a real testament to the maturity and character of the original participants (we've all seen other threads where...)!  There appears to be some interest in continuing this and maybe even expanding it (an FS9 Cross-Country Racing League?).  May I poll the group to see how everyone would like to resolve the weather question? 

[defaid]

12 hours ago, TomPenDragon said:

... might there be a way for you to install FSRealWX 2.0 onto it?  If so, I or someone else here can download and post the .fswx file of the current weather, which you can then transfer to your sim computer and use the "Load WX from file" option to set a complete, recent weatherscape. 

 

Now there's an interesting suggestion. SimMarket shows v3.0 as being suitable for FS9. Flying online is not a fundamental problem except for a slow connection. Rather, it's that my malware protection seem to ignore me when I set exclusions; it hammers load times and digs well into framerate too. If v3.0 will allow me to download a complete weather file and then maintain FS9's weather for me once I've returned to offline (and disabled Nanny) then that will work perfectly well.

 

I don't think fairness is really a problem: we've all elected to fly on our own terms. My  concern was that a 20 kt headwind would become cleared weather and then a 50 kt tail wind and then a 95 kt tailwind and then some enterprising individual, with no interest but in winning, would create their own weather with a 200 kt tailwind. I could see that spiral never ending. I appreciate JGF's suggestion too but I'm not keen on creating weather for a race - I don't think anyone knows himself so well as to be sure he's not tweaking things a little.

 

Tom, from your reply, it's obvious that I've done you a disservice and I am truly sorry.

 

D

[TomPenDragon]

1 hour ago, defaid said:

Tom, from your reply, it's obvious that I've done you a disservice and I am truly sorry.

 Not at all, D, unless by, "disservice," you mean that you took the perfectly ordinary, dull day that I was planning and filled it with a technical conundrum that had me bouncing off the walls for half a day and my wife and dogs wondering, "What's gotten into him that he looks so bright-eyed all of a sudden."  Thank you for that!

 

1 hour ago, defaid said:

SimMarket shows v3.0 as being suitable for FS9.

V3.0 (3.1.0.2243) is 30-day trialware, then payware.  FSRealWX Lite (2.0) is the freeware version,  You can get it from www.fsrealwx.de :

Go to Downloads, then to Archive, where FSRealWX Lite should appear to the right.  Should you wish to download and install it, here's an .fswx file from this morning for testing:

storedWX.zip

Sorry it's a .zip; .fswx is not a valid filetype for attachments here (yet).  I believe that the larger .fswx.tmp file might be the decompressed version of the file, but since FSRealWX created the two of them, I figured I'd better include them both.  According to my flying machine's combination (conflagration?) of Comodo, Avast, and Malwarebytes, both the files and the 2.0 download are clean, but I'd advise to check them anyway - and please let me know if the three above-mentioned idiots missed anything.

 

If you decide to try it, best of success!  i'll be glad to help if you need it.

 

Tom

[jgf]

The issue of weather isn't a problem, just decide on one of FS2004's default weather themes for all to use.  For more options there's a nice set of ORBX themes available.

 

58 minutes ago, TomPenDragon said:

V3.0 (3.1.0.2243) is 30-day trialware, then payware.  FSRealWX Lite (2.0) is the freeware version

 

I've never found any free version, and the demo does nothing but tell me I need to check my internet connection (which is obviously working since I could download the program);  apparently this is a not uncommon problem.

[ViperPilot2]

About the Wx... I know everybody's got issues with RT Wx in some shape or form; that's why for these shindigs I left the choice of Wx up to the individual Participant.

[TomPenDragon]

The FBO at Cortez is stocked like a convenience store, and I find a good, metal thermos quite easily. Less easy is paying for it - the prices here would embarrass a truck stop! The other part of the building is a diner, and the server rinses and fills my new thermos for me, and only charges me for a single cup. Good coffee, too; not the kind of swill that was over-brewed to begin with and then left on a hot burner for a week and a half. Perhaps it's the time of day; I had to wait until it had stopped brewing. I look at the picture window at the front of the cafe and see myself looking back, the reflection of the restaurant, and inky black, punctuated by blue pinpoints of taxiway lights and brighter white of the strip.

 

At the risk of imposing on a server who's already shown me kindness (no good deed goes unpunished), I turn and ask for one other thing, in a whisper that her young ears struggle to decipher. She smiles, stifling a laugh, goes into the back, and brings out a wide-mouthed, one gallon jug that used to hold orange juice. It's even been washed - so I'm not the first airman to have made such a request! Guess this thermos is going to make it past Hill City...

 

I head back to The Beast and give her a good walk-around. I'm pleasantly surprised by the oil - it's clear, smells oily, not burnt, and isn't even down enough to justify topping it off. Tastes good, too. The chill of the air is going right through my flight suit, so I hop into the cockpit, put on my leather helmet, and fire her up. Heat soon begins flowing from the climate control system.

 

"Climate control in a warbird?" Well, you didn't think The Beast was an original, did you? There were only two of those made, and neither has survived until this day. No, this is a rivet-by-rivet replica from the House of Shupe, Falley, Richards, Thomas, Visser, and Radice. I went for the stock option (now, I wish I had at least sprung for a relief tube), but it's still pressurized and climate-controlled. A very nice piece of kit!

 

I take off, get her set up, and begin the long climb once again. The little town of Cortez has grown into a proper city since the last time I was here...

 

 

What... wait... what altitude are we at? 18? 19? No, 24.6. I closed my eyes for a minute there. Not a good thing. If the Ultrabolt has one potentially fatal flaw, it's that she's so smooth while cruising - steadier than some airliners I've been on - that it's easy to lose focus. I rub my eyes and pour myself a cup of coffee. At least I'm not trying to pour coffee into my eyes. But I already know it's not going to do me any good. At this point, the only way that the steaming hot brew is going to open my eyes is if I fall asleep again and drop it into my lap. Age, The only thing worse than getting this old is not...

 

 

 

 

"Sun coming up in New Mexico sky, burr in my saddle and fire in my eye" - C.W. McCall

 

I'm not in New Mexico anymore - I think Cortez is in Colorado, isn't it? But the rest of the verse fits. To me, there's nothing like the dawn to bring life back into these old bones. In Endurance, either Racing or Flying (and I'm doing both!), it's my favorite time of the day. For just a moment, it feels like you can go on forever, like there's nothing you can't do. For just a moment...

 

What a spectacular Sunrise!! But the sky's grown cloudy now, right in time to begin descending to HLC. The Beast and I go hurtling toward the ground once more...

 

 

WHERE THE FRAP IS HILL CITY? I'm right on top of the beacon - just saw the VOR, for heaven's sake. I tear the GPS off of its Velcro perch and zoom in - beacon, but no airport. Does it exist in this universe? An inadvertent double-click on a button brings up the Nearest Airport, and shows me that KHLC does - nearly 20 miles away from the VOR! That was some urine-poor flight planning there, Thomas. Running this course was a last-minute idea, after the factory had called me yesterday evening to delay my appointment to check on the progress of my new aircraft. I rushed through a simple flight plan, right before falling asleep. I didn't bother checking it again before flying. Sloppiness like that's going to get you killed someday, Thomas, mark my words!

 

 

 

 

(too embarrassed to say any more...)

[Airbasil_1]

Finally did my last (pretty bumpy) Leg: ORD - CLE and in the meantime, I reached the destination .
Only got up to FL080 during this respectively short Leg. 

 

But let the Pictures speak about it all: 





Over the Great Lakes, the turbulences catched up on my and won't disappear... one after another i had to fight with...



In the end, I made it over the Great Lakes and reached land again, just shortly before landing. Luckily i didn't experience any crosswinds on finals. 







Welcome to Cleveland!

and so, my Race is over and I'm ready for the next. 
Hope you liked some of my Pics I shared of my Journey. 

 

 

[TomPenDragon]

AirbAnsel Adams!!!!!!

[jgf]

He's so fast they handicapped him by making him carry bombs.

[Rupert]

45 minutes ago, jgf said:

He's so fast they handicapped him by making him carry bombs.

True enough!  Having said that, I bet the FBOS all give him good parking spots, offer loaner cars, and clean his windscreens just before taxi.  Who'd want to be on his bad side right before his takeoff!!

[Airbasil_1]

10 minutes ago, Rupert said:

True enough!  Having said that, I bet the FBOS all give him good parking spots, offer loaner cars, and clean his windscreens just before taxi.  Who'd want to be on his bad side right before his takeoff!!

Absolutely no worries there... all the weapons have been demilitarised... thei're just there for museum purposes...  
I've allways got my refueling and was warmly welcomed at the FBO's, even got a Hangar Place at Kansas City, got a car to the Hotel and was even a Star at some of the Airports I landed at...
because of the old Aircraft, people don't see often these times. 

[Rupert]

16 minutes ago, Airbasil_1 said:

Absolutely no worries there... all the weapons have been demilitarised... their just there for museum purposes...  
I've allways got my refueling and was warmly welcomed at the FBO's, got a car to the Hotel and was even a Star at some of the Airports I landed at... because of the old Aircraft, people don't see often these times. 

 

I still think it has a lot to do with your "museum purposes" underwing add-ons .  If I were running a FBO, they'd sure get my attention, just in case!!

 

In fact back when I was ferrying H-46s from Baltimore to So Cal, we knew a FBO in Midway Texas who did just the opposite.  When this guy heard incoming calls from 46 ferry hops to refuel he'd load the open bed if his Follow Me Truck with women in bikinis and coolers full of beer. 

 

Guess which FBO we always refueled our 46's at!

[TomPenDragon]

AirBasil, umm, Sir, I do humbly beseech you to please forgive your servant if I've ever inadvertantly cut you off in the pattern...

[JSMR]

Out of curiosity did anyone do it non-stop? I think the B-29 stopped once?