Bomb hits tailplane on release

"Ed Rasimus" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 22 Jun 2004 22:46:32 -0400, "Kevin Brooks"
wrote:


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).

Brooks

Early prototypes of the F-105 attempted conventional rigging of the
B-28-RE in the internal bomb-bay. No one anticipated the boundary
layer along the fuselage at 600 knots IAS. When the bombbay opened for
bomb release, shackles opened and bomb dropped a few inches but didn't
come through the high speed airflow. Bombbay doors reclosed with bomb
simply resting on the doors. (Shape--of course, not hot weapon!)

Solution was a "displacing gear"--a roughly six-inch diameter,
pneumatic piston that had about a two foot throw. Charged to a couple
of thousand pounds/sq-inch, the piston was said to either push the
bomb down or the airplane up.

All became moot because the airplane never carried an internal nuke
operationally. Displacing gear was still in place, however.

The boundary layer flow was the reason for the B-66 problem as well, from
what I remember of the gent's explanation. But in his case ISTR he
experienced it when dropping conventional ordnance during a training
evolution; I remember him distinctly mentioning "bombs" (plural) thudding
around, and IIRC he indicated a little pull up on the nose was used to
ensure their eventual departure. I do know he said it was not a pleasant
experience!

Brooks



Ed Rasimus
Fighter Pilot (USAF-Ret)
"When Thunder Rolled"
Smithsonian Institution Press
ISBN #1-58834-103-8

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

Hi Paul.

Some of the others mentioned by people here sound pretty good, but as you
said it floated back up and hit the tailplane, not exploded, it sounds very
much like film of a trial drop of stores by an F-111, although from memory,
I think it may have been a drop tank rather than a bomb.

I'm pretty sure I have a copy here, and failing that, should have one at
work.

How soon did you need it? At the moment I can't convert it to a file to
e-mail, but hopefully i'll have my camera back in the next few weeks and be
able to convert it to digital.


Bye for now.


--
Darryl Gibbs
HTTP://www.cnapg.org
Information on all aspects of aviation, particularly vintage and warbirds.
Home of the CNAPG aircraft recognition quiz's.



"Paul Housley" wrote in message
om...
Perhaps a bit of a random question for this newsgroup.

A while ago, I saw video footage of a bomb being released from a
fighter-bomber under test conditions. It was on an aviation
documentary. The high speed camera then shows it climb up and destroy
the tailplane. I don't think they quite got their trajectory calcs
right!

Has anyone seen this video? Does anyone know where I could get a copy.
Stills from it would be fine. It's for a uni project in case you were
wondering.

If not, anyone able to point me in the right direction of where to
ask?

Thanks for your help.

Paul.

"Darryl Gibbs" wrote in message
...
Hi Paul.

Some of the others mentioned by people here sound pretty good, but as you
said it floated back up and hit the tailplane, not exploded, it sounds
very
much like film of a trial drop of stores by an F-111, although from
memory,
I think it may have been a drop tank rather than a bomb.

ISTR an F-111 film of that, too.

The store (or tank) separated, floated in the slipstream for a second or
two, then went straight back and cleaned off the right stab.

Pete

"Pete" wrote:

ISTR an F-111 film of that, too.

The store (or tank) separated, floated in the slipstream for a second or
two, then went straight back and cleaned off the right stab.

That is what I remember as well. Wasn't a chase plane also caught up in the
mishap?

-- Charlie Springer

The store (or tank) separated, floated in the slipstream for a second or
two, then went straight back and cleaned off the right stab.

That is what I remember as well. Wasn't a chase plane also caught up in the
mishap?

Are you thinking of the F/A Teen test where a Mk 82 plus the pylon detaches and
wipes out the TA-4 chase plane? Some of the nastiest video I have seen - you
can almost hear the Scooter pilot yelling, "What the hell did you doooooooo!!!"
just as he flinches into the path of the oncoming bomb. Bonus points for the
crew, staying in their flaming torch for the first 6-7 fiery tumbles, then
ejecting just before the debris rains down next to the range observation boat.
A++ video clip (cuz no one got kilt).

v/r
Gordon


====(A+C====
USN SAR

Its always better to lose -an- engine, not -the- engine.

nt (Krztalizer) wrote:

Are you thinking of the F/A Teen test where a Mk 82 plus the pylon detaches
and
wipes out the TA-4 chase plane?

That has to be it.

-- Charlie Springer

"Paul Housley" wrote in message
om...
Perhaps a bit of a random question for this newsgroup.

A while ago, I saw video footage of a bomb being released from a
fighter-bomber under test conditions. It was on an aviation
documentary. The high speed camera then shows it climb up and destroy
the tailplane. I don't think they quite got their trajectory calcs
right!

Has anyone seen this video? Does anyone know where I could get a copy.
Stills from it would be fine. It's for a uni project in case you were
wondering.

If not, anyone able to point me in the right direction of where to
ask?

Thanks for your help.

Paul.

We have a compilation video at work of "Store Release gone WRONG!" Makes
interesting viewing before we start doing release and jettison work.
Unfortunately it would be too large to email out of the office (and I don't
think the security people would like it too much!)

Its made up mainly of Edwards/Eglin/Pax River stuff, but a few things from
RAF/RN are in it as well.....

"Ian" wrote

We have a compilation video at work of "Store Release gone WRONG!" Makes
interesting viewing before we start doing release and jettison work.
Unfortunately it would be too large to email out of the office (and I
don't
think the security people would like it too much!)

Its made up mainly of Edwards/Eglin/Pax River stuff, but a few things from
RAF/RN are in it as well.....

As an ex-weapons troop, I'd *love* to see that.

Pete

"Pete" wrote in message
...

"Ian" wrote

We have a compilation video at work of "Store Release gone WRONG!" Makes
interesting viewing before we start doing release and jettison work.
Unfortunately it would be too large to email out of the office (and I
don't
think the security people would like it too much!)

Its made up mainly of Edwards/Eglin/Pax River stuff, but a few things
from
RAF/RN are in it as well.....

As an ex-weapons troop, I'd *love* to see that.

I had a tac officer back in school who had done some work with the Airborne
Test Board at Bragg while he was assigned to the 27th Engineer Battalion
there. He showed us a video of similar nature which could be best titled as
"Heavy Drop and LAPES Gone Wrong". LAPES'd vehicles flipping over, LAPES'd
loads breaking apart, LAPES drops from a wee bit too high (prang!), and the
best one, a vehicle heavy drop (an M551 Sheridan IIRC) that saw first one
large chute fail, then a second failure, and then the remaining chute shred
and the vehicle hit hard enough to crater the DZ. Of course these happened
in the days before the Enviro-Nazis took control, requiring that every spilt
drop of fuel at a FARP or FLE location be carefully policed up and hauled
back to the hazardous waste disposal area...

Brooks


Pete