FORMATIONS, BOMB RUNS AND RADIUS OF ACTION

FORMATIONS, BOMB RUNS AND RADIUS OF ACTION

Formation flying burned fuel. Lots of fuel. And the tighter the formation the
the more fuel burned. And the further back you were in the formation the more
fuel burned. Look at it this way. The lead plane set throttles for the desired
IAS and pretty much left them that way for most of the mission give or take a
bit here and there. But the guys flying on the lead's wing in the number two
and three slots had to jockey the throttles to stay in formation. The 4 and 5
guys had to jockey the throttles even more to stay with the 3 and 4 guys. The
poor ******* flying the number 6 slot, tail end Charlie, was jerking his
throttles back and forth to stay centered in the number 6 slot and he was
burning gas faster than anyone. And of course it was always the new crews
flying tail end Charlie. These were the least experienced crews, and that
didn't help either.

One way to conserve fuel was to fly loose formations to the target, then fly an
extremely tight formations on the bomb run to insure a good tight bomb pattern
and a high degree of target destruction.

Up to now I have been talking in generalities. How loose is loose? How tight is
tight? Well you can see exactly what a formation looks like on the way to the
target and what it looks like after it has tightened up for the bomb run.
Go to my website and click on "B-26 Formation" to see a loose formation on the
way to the target. Now go to "Stripes in Formation" to see just how tight a
formation we flew on the bomb run. Look at the right hand side of the
photograph. See the wing tip just inside the frame? Now judge the distance from
that wingtip to the wingtip on the plane in the foreground. You can't get much
tighter than that. These are skilled experienced bomber pilots at their very
best.

But what about poor ol' tail end Charlie who is running out of fuel fast? Well
to see what happens to him go back to my website and read, " God Bless St.
Trond". And many of us did just that.

Arthur Kramer
Visit my WW II B-26 website at:
http://www.coastcomp.com/artkramer