Warbird Information Exchange

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Climb aboard, indeed! Great pics!

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All right, Mister Dorfmann, start pullin'!
Pilot: "Flap switch works hard in down position."
Mechanic: "Flap switch checked OK. Pilot needs more P.T." - Flight report, TB-17G 42-102875 (Hobbs AAF)

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what were the circumstances of the crash??

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tom d. friedman - hey!!! those fokkers were messerschmitts!! * without ammunition, the usaf would be just another flying club!!! * better to have piece of mind than piece of tail!!

Too much gas, too many bombs, and not enough power to get off the deck. Or, as my father used to say, "The darn plane always had mechanical problems so it flew as much as a cow." Hence, the name Sky-Cow. Another crew was attempting a take-off in July 1944. By then my dad's crew had switched planes.

glad he got away with his skin to relate the story to you, & you to us. thanks!!!

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tom d. friedman - hey!!! those fokkers were messerschmitts!! * without ammunition, the usaf would be just another flying club!!! * better to have piece of mind than piece of tail!!

Amazing that with a fully-fueled, fully-armed aircraft it doesn't seem to have burned/exploded after running off the runway.

It was amazing according to dad. Maybe one reason is that they didn't arm the bombs until it was in the air.

Hey Randy, how are the bombs (say on a strike eagle) armed these days? Electronically(I would surmise) or manually on the ground prior to takeoff?

regards,


t~

Weapons on the FA-18s where not "Armed" until they separated from the aircraft. There is an Arming lanyard that triggers the process to start, weather manual or electronic. The lanyard is generally retained to the aircraft when the weapon is released. In emergencies the pilot can drop the weapon or jettison it with out arming it and in theory it will not go off when it hits something.

Most modern weapons are "shot" off the station and not just allowed to drop off. One would not want an armed bomb hanging on a station; I don’t think I need to explain why.

I’ve been told, I could be wrong here, pilots during training would sometimes drop the weapons out side of the mission specs and the weapons would hit the ground before they would arm, thus no boom and a job for EOD to handle. Or it had to do with dropping bombs that where made in the 1960s.

On another side note the most dangerous weapon to an AO was the Mk-76 “smurf” bomb because it had no safety at all.



I know there are a few Weapon Guys here, Jack. Am I getting this right? All those year in my IWT shop I hope I retained something.

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www.tailhookstudio.com

What was the fate of the crew?

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Good stuff. Thx Tim!


regards,

t~

The fuses are armed either electrically or mechanically after physically separating the aircraft. In either case, wind spins a turbine which either generates electrical power or mechanically arms the fuse.

BUT...

Just because the bombs aren't armed doesn't mean they won't detonate in the event of a crash or fire. The fuses merely provide the shock and temperature to set off the main explosive in the bomb. If a crash or fire generates those same conditions, it is entirely possible to generate a high-order detonation.



There are all sorts of reasons that bombs dud -- failure of the arming lanyard, not enough airspeed/G to arm the fuse, failure of the fuse, something wrong with the actual explosive. It *might* have something to do with dropping a bomb out of parameters, but generally the flight parameters needed to arm a GP bomb aren't that tough to meet, and someone would have to be flying in the traffic pattern with the gear down to make it not arm...



The USAF calls those little beauties BDU-33s. There actually is a safety...a clip that sits behind the plunger in the nose and keeps the smoke charge from going off. Once the clip is pulled in EOR, the thing is hot.