In article ,
Corky Scott wrote:


My father, who flew PB4Y-1's and -2's told me about the climb above
and dive down to cruising altitude technique which he used for his
long range patrol. The PB4Y-1, called the "Privateer" by the Navy,
was the navalized version of the B-24. Loaded for patrol, it would
have been substantially overgross. The B-24 also had a wing called
the Davis Wing, which had a very narrow cord (high aspect ratio) and
it's likely that it had a narrowly defined best cruise angle of
attack. I think it's possible that if you did not accelerate to the
proper airspeed, you could spend a long time wallowing along behind
the power curve before enough fuel burned off to allow the airplane to
nose down to the proper angle of attack. I agree though that finding
that proper cruise attitude and speed could be achieved by the diving
down method as well as leaving climb power on and throttling back once
the proper speed has been reached, or slightly exceeded. The point is
to exceed it slightly before throttling back, I doubt the airplane
cared which way you managed that.


I flew a B-24 for a couple of years. We rarely flew at gross, and
certainly never reached the weights the airplanes were operated at
during the war.

If you didn't either climb above and dive down or leave the power up to
accelerate to cruise speed it would make about a 10-15 mph difference in
speed. The method we prefered and used was to climb above the desired
altitude and dive back down. This was quicker than using power to
accelerate.

A pilot that was ham fisted in pitch could bleed off the speed at cruise
and end up on the low end.

--
Dale L. Falk

There is nothing - absolutely nothing - half so much worth doing
as simply messing around with airplanes.

http://home.gci.net/~sncdfalk/flying.html