FSX Douglas B-18A Bolo

The Douglas B18A entered the USAAC inventory in 1937 and was used as a bomber until 1942. Some were later converted for anti-sub patrols by adding a radar to the nose. This is a native FSX Acceleration project. It has the usual animations plus animated bomb bay doors and retracting top turret and machine gun. It is painted for the 7th Bomber Group stationed at March Air Base. It has reflective textures in DXT5.dds format. The VC and 2D panel are from the default DC-3. By Paul Clawson. (See also B-18A_B-9_CRASH_FIX.ZIP).

The Douglas B-18A has been a favorite of mine for many years. It was the first military airplane I can remember seeing as a child. My Dad took me to see one at the Dubuque, Iowa airport in 1939 or 1940, I was either seven or eight.. It was there as part of a USAAC recruiting drive. It was the biggest, baddest plane I had ever seen and I was thrilled by the noise it made when it took off.

The B-18 "Bolo" was designed as a replacement for the Martin B-10. It first went into service in 1937 and was used as a bomber until 1942. Most of them were assigned to Hawaii and the Phillipines when the war broke out. All but a few were destroyed on the ground during the original attacks on those locations. I have seen references to the fact that some were used to make successful bombing runs around Dutch Harbor early on, but those notes have been lost over the years. A few were assigned to the East Coast and fitted with a anti-sub radar in a bulbous nose in place of the bombardier station. They did sink a few subs before they were replaced with the much longer range B-24.

This is a native FSX Acceleration project. It has the usual animations plus a retractable upper turret and machine gun and animated bomb bay doors. The turret is activated with the exit command (Shift + E) and the bomb bay doors are activated with the spoiler command (usually "/"). It is painted for the 7th Bomber Group based at March Air Base. The reflective textures are in DXT5.dds format.

The VC and 2D panel are straight from the default DC-3. It is very similar in looks and action except for the overhead so I chose not to reinvent the wheel. Some will object to that approach, but that is the path I chose to take.

INSTALLATION: Unzip B18AvX.zip into a temporary folder. Copy the folder Douglas B-18A into the Airplane folder of FSX. That's all there is to it.

This project is released as freeware. You may repaint it, make panel modifications and upload to this or another website as long you give me credit for the original design. You need my written permission to use any of these files for commercial purposes.

This airplane should not hurt your computer but I am not responsible if you think it causes problems.

Enjoy! P. Clawson