Tips: Success in B-17 revolves around taking care of and learning from your crew. Taketime to notice how the computer-controlled gunners aim for the fast movingfighters and try to learn from their techniques. When you are being attacked, use 'Z' and 'X' to change to an enemy fighter, then SHIFT-F1 to see the battle from the fighter pilot's view.
Take care of your engines: Make regular checks on the outside view to check your engines; if your co-pilothas been hit you don't get any warning. Fuel leaks can be critical to thesuccess of a mission. If necessary you need to turn off an engine or two anddrop out of formation to conserve fuel. If your engines are on fire point thenose at the ground and try diving at between 350-400 mph - this is useful inlater levels when one fire extinguisher per engine isn't enough.
A healthy crew is a happy crew: Make regular checks to ensure the crew is OK and that the guns aren't jammed -it's easy to miss messages in the heat of combat. Keep at least one pilothealthy because the plane can end up in a spin if it's in a turn when the pilotis hit, giving little time to bail out.Make the radio operator send a MayDay message to improve your chances of survival when you're bailing out over the channel. Landing an engineless,bullet-ridden, flame-scorched B-17 after a mission is risky and difficult. Bailout over the channel to ensure mission success. Before landing, attempt to healinjured crew otherwise they are hospitalised. Having more than one crew memberpeform first aid on a casualty increases the chances of success.
