Bomb hits tailplane on release

"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).

Brooks


WDA

end


"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.

The film you recall was of an F-100 being chased by an F-105 at Eglin.

Flying a "rail cut" mission? Reason I ask is the copy I used to have of that
tape mentioned it. The frag was immediate - both aircraft began burning within
a second or two of the detonation. Great old film.

v/r
Gordon
====(A+C====
USN SAR

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

If you ever wondered what those airplanes covered with the black/white
quadrant circles (like a BMW trademark) carrying stores with the same kind
of markings were doing, it's so films can be shot with exact reference
points to track the movement of the stores as they drop. I seem to recall
this is why the pylons on the E/F Super hornet had to be angled out-


--
Jim Atkins
Twentynine Palms, CA USA

Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend.
Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read.
-Groucho Marx

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.

On 23 Jun 2004 04:48:34 GMT, nt (Krztalizer) wrote:


The film you recall was of an F-100 being chased by an F-105 at Eglin.

Flying a "rail cut" mission? Reason I ask is the copy I used to have of that
tape mentioned it. The frag was immediate - both aircraft began burning within
a second or two of the detonation. Great old film.

It was a OT&E flight on the Eglin test range, but that's the purpose
of the MLU-10B. It was built on a Mk-82 (or possibly M117) bomb case
with a flat face reinforced nose that contained the mine fuse. It was
supposed to be delivered by lay-down and was NOT retarded.

The idea was that the heavy, reinforced nose would allow the fuse to
survive the delivery. Concept was a battery relay that after a short
delivery delay would arm the weapon. The battery held the firing
contacts open until a seismic event (like a train passing) would shake
the contacts close---BOOM! After time, the battery would weaken and
the mine become more sensitive. Maybe a truck would be sufficient to
close the contacts. Eventually, the battery would die and contacts
would close and the bomb would detonate.

The center of the face plate had a small light bulb. If the light lit,
it meant that the weapon had armed and would go off with any jarring.
We carried them out of Korat on F-105s in '66 (when we weren't short
of bombs.....according to mcnamara.) Everybody hated the load because
no one wanted to do lay-downs in a high threat area, everyone had seen
the broaching film, and there was a "no return" policy for the weapon.
If you got airborne with it, you must get it off the airplane before
you could return and land. If it hung and you couldn't jettison the
pylon or suspension gear you would have to jettison the airplane.


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

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.


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

"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

Ed Rasimus wrote:

Higher speeds mean the store can generate lift (just like any curved
surface.) There were instances of jettisoned fuel tanks from F-105s
climbing as much as 3000 feet above the release aircraft.

I always wondered about the stories of separation tests on the
A3J Vigilante with its rear ejection tunnel. Supposedly some of the
weapon shapes could coast along in the wake for quite a distance.

Nothing like a live nuke that follows you home.

"Can I keep it ?"




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Ed Rasimus wrote:

Higher speeds mean the store can generate lift (just like any curved
surface.)

IIRC, "curved" is unnecessary here. After all, they do say that, given
enough thrust, a brick will fly, do they not?