"Keith W" wrote:
snip

The Lancaster bomber was designed to be able to
attack in a 30 degree dive and had a bomb bay large
enough to take aerial torpedoes although I dont think
were ever actually carried.

Keith

Perhaps not in anger but they certainly were carried in practice
runs and in peacetime...we used to drop them (unarmed) from
Lancasters on submarines for ASW practice in the fifties...(mk
43's?). we also dropped live mk54 depth charges from Lancasters
on smoke markers in the same timeframe...

Jeeez, those suckers put up one big geyser of water I'll tell
you...we'd drop one (from about 100 ft) then climb rapidly and
wheel around and watch the entry point near the smoke marker
target...all'd be quiet for a few seconds except for the smoke
and a small white splash point where the charge went in...then,
suddenly a big area of white water would appear, maybe 3-400 feet
across and seconds later a humongous waterspout of solid black
water would shoot straight up from the centre of the white area
maybe 100 feet high...

Spec..frickin..tacular!!..WooHoo!!.

--

-Gord.
(use gordon in email)