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