[Bill Walker]

Jim, it all depends on the definitions used for each mission. US government specs require you to use standard assumptions when calculating the numbers: so many minutes warming up, at a given power; so many minutes formating, at a given power; so many minutes in combat, at a given power; and so on. You need to know the assumptions before you compare numbers. Obviously, if you have the same procurement agency (AF or Navy for example) at about the same time, you probably have the same assumptions. The problem arises when you start comparing different agencies and/or different time periods.

As I said before, all this is academic when it comes to planning an actual mission. There have been a few examples of well trained and well disciplined crews exceeding published range data. Think Doolittle's raiders, or the FAA attacks on Norway from UK bases. I suspect there are some examples of other crews not making the published numbers, but they probably weren't boasting about it.

Just another thought on the original question: I suspect that the external bomb load would lower your gas mileage for half the mission, due to drag. So, the radius with a bomb load would then become some smaller fraction of range without a bomb load.