In article ,
"Kevin Brooks" writes:

"W. D. Allen Sr." wrote in message
...
This is a more common problem than people realize. Releasing a store in
flight from a bomb bay or from under wing is not a no-brainer.

The F-86 had instances when drop tanks went up over the leading edge of
it's
wing when released under certain flight conditions. The Navy A-3D had
nuclear shapes hang in the bomb bay after release. A retractable "rake"
was
mounted in front of the bomb bay to solve that problem. By the way, in
WWII
it was not unheard-of for bombers in higher squadrons to drop their bomb
loads onto lower flying bombers.

The A3D was not the only member of that family that experienced such a
problem. Knew a guy who flew B-66's (and later EB-66's) who told me that it
was unnerving to do a bomb drop from the Destroyer because it sometimes had
a habit of having bombs "bounce" around in the bomb bay after release before
actually leaving the aircraft (which may explain why its career as a bomber
was rather short).

Quite a few airplanes did - the A-26/B-26 required that a spoiler be
added ahead of teh bomb bay to assure a clean drop.
The B-47 had a difficult time getting cleared to drop the Mk 5 nuclear
bomb. The Mk 5 was the first "Lightweight" (For certain values of
"light") nuclear bombs, and if didn't have the sectional density to
cleanly break through the boundary layer around the B-47's bomb bay.

The difficulty in getting things to fall out of a normal bomb bay was
one of the drivers behind Martin's development of the rotating
load-carrying bomb bay door for the XB-51, which they carried over to
the B-57.

--
Pete Stickney
A strong conviction that something must be done is the parent of many
bad measures. -- Daniel Webster