Bomber planes

The first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima the morning on August 6, 1945. by a bomber plane named Enola Gay . The first effect of the explosion occurred in one tenth of a second. It was a very bright light which caused blindness and 300,000°C heat. It burnt everything within about a three kilometer diameter area. An 1,800 km/h shock wave from the explosion destroyed everything. The major and permanent effect was the radioactive fallout which started several minutes later. This terrifying bomb, which ruined Hiroshima in a few seconds, caused approximately 80,000 deaths and 100,000 wounded. 

The B-2 stealth bomber in Figure 1-38 is made by Northrop Grumman. Virtually all external parts are made of various composite materials because of their radar-absorption characteristics and/or their capability to be formed to shapes that naturally lower the radar cross section of the plane. However, the details are not publicly available, nor are they for the Lockheed Martin F-117A stealth fighter. 

In 1944 Wellington bomber R for Robert was on a training mission in Scotland. During the course of the exercise the plane experienced difficulties and was forced to ditch into Loch Ness with the loss of one crewman. The bomber settled on the bottom of the lakebed and lay undisturbed for years. Divers discovered her 10 years ago in a remarkable state of preservation and a decision was taken to raise her from the lake and undertake a complete renovation of the aircraft. Among the items found on board was an Elsan toilet, undamaged and in excellent condition. The problems of maintaining and sanitising toilets on wartime aircraft were not key issues at that time, but today this aspect is extremely important in civil aviation. 

During World War II, nylon became an Allied weapon, along with Carothers Neoprene, Midgley s tetraethyl lead and Freon, and DDT (Chapter 8). The military diverted all available nylon for use in parachutes, airplane tire cords, glider towropes, tents, and the like. Nylon tires enabled bombers and carrier planes fueled with tetraethyl lead to withstand overloading. 

The most common mode of aircraft detection is radar. Essentially, radar is the detection of radio waves that have been thrown out and which bounce off objects returning to the site of origin. Today s radar, if properly used, can help identify the location, speed, and identity of the aircraft. The radar cross-section (RCS) of an aircraft is how much echo the plane sends from radar. Birds have an RCS of about 0.01 m. The Stealth Bomber has an RCS of 0.75 m. The Stealth Bomber and many stealth aircraft gain their stealth character from both the shape of the aircraft and the presence of radar absorbing material (RAM), which is made to absorb and eliminate radio waves rather than reflect them. Most of the RAM materials are polymeric. 

Baka Piloted Rocket Bomb was a suicide weapon designed to be controlled by a human pilot. It resembled a plane, was carried beneath.the fuselage of a bomber and released near its target. Three Type 4 Mk 1 Rocket Motors provided propulsion after Baka was released from the mother plane. The entire HE content of the Baka (1135 lbs of Type 91 Expl) (Trinitroanisole) was in the warhead of the nose. Baka was 19 ft 10 inches long with wingspread 16 ft 5 inches. Its warhead had Nose and Tail Fuzes (pp 116—17, Fig 88)... 

Since die wire method of control restricted the maneuverability of launching planes and required that they remain in the vicinity of missiles, thus exposing themselves to the weapons of enemy s bombers, the wire control method was replaced in the latter model of the X-4 by an acoustic homing device Kranich. With the latter device the parent plane could execute an evasive maneuver the moment the missile was launched and then withdraw itself beyond die range of enemy bombers weapons (Ref 3, p 216)... 

VF code name for a fighter plane of the Naval Air Service VPB code name for the Navy Patrol bomber... 

On top of this, Tauber also claims that the Sonderkommandos shoved extraordinarily many corpses into each oven (up to eight) when they heard Allied planes approaching. Tauber claims that by so doing, huge flames would have come out of the crematorium s chimney, which they hoped would make the Allied bomber pilots aware of them. But as is common knowledge and has been pointed out many times, no... 

Our project had some difficulties with the delivery of mustard gas bombs by airplanes. On one occasion the plan was to drop she mustard bombs in quick succession. The bomber moved on its covurse, approached the delivery point, and its bomb bays were opened but the crew detected something wrong, they did not release the bombs, and the pilot took the plane on... 

At first, an optimised aeronautical shape based on facetting, appeared (see e.g. Lockheed F 177 used during the Gulf War). Concave curvature of the surface (i.e. stealth planes SR 71 and BIB) or the flying-wing concept (B2 American bomber) without any dihedrons have also been developed. 

To give the bombers further advantage Churchill had authorized the first use of the secret radar-jamming device known as Window bales of lO.S-inch strips of aluminum foil to be pushed out of the bombers en route to the target to disperse on the wind and cloud German defensive radar. Window worked so well that of the 791 planes of the initial raid only twelve were lost. 

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