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Another Canberra tale from Philip Ward, about visual bombing
Here's a bit that I wrote for Steven Beeny's book, "The Canberra Experience." It's full of ripping yarns to use Biggles' terminology.
Visual bombing in the Canberra was something of a novelty - we didn't expect to have to bomb visually against the Rooskies. Our modus operandi in Exercises was a solo single run attack in which we dropped a bomb by Gee-H (radar) from 45,000 ft in the dark. Presumably it would be a "big-banger" to use fireworks terminology.
Anyway to describe visual bombing – one had to get out of the ejection seat and all the other attendant harness and crawl down forward past the pilot position to lay on a foam rubber mat. If you were above twelve thousand, oxygen was required and there was a long tube available to allow for the crawl. In the event of an emergency you would just have to make the sign of the cross – your parachute was in the ejection seat.
The weather was so uncertain that we spent most of our time waiting for an opportunity to drop practice-bombs visually. That meant that we had to see the ground from anything up to 25,000 feet altitude, something of an impossibility in wintertime England. I remember going up, "in case," and dodging around the clouds trying to see the target long enough to do a bombing run. A lot of the boys took chances and let the darn things go and had them land outside the target area. This was not recommended, leading to courts-of-inquiry and black marks. The bombs themselves were 25 lb practice bombs. They were toy-like in appearance and had a flash-compound in the tail which was observable by day or night. The range-operators were in concrete blockhouses and observed the flashes by taking bearing on them when they landed. Thus they could tell where, in relation to the target, it had landed, giving one the accuracy of the drop. It was always a relief to hear them acknowledge that your bomb had been observed. Forty years later I was to park next to one of these blockhouses without realizing where I was. It was Otmoor near Oxford.
The dropping of bombs visually gave one a chance to watch a rather interesting phenomenon. The bombsight pointed considerably ahead of the aircraft so that when you finally had the target in the sight and released the bomb you were still miles away. When you looked down (part of the procedure to make sure that the bomb had left the aircraft) hopefully the bomb would be on its way. They dropped away straight down, keeping pace with the forward speed of the aircraft. It looked as though the thing was going to hit straight below you, and straight below you were towns and farms! As the bomb fell farther and farther it got smaller and smaller, still going straight down. As it got closer to the ground its relative forward speed became apparent and the thing took off at great speed across the countryside like a rocket appearing to move horizontally until it finally plunged and exploded roughly where you wanted it. There were various vagaries connected with this procedure to add a little anxiety. Firstly, it was very important that when you pressed the button, the bomb should fall out! Sometimes they failed to release due to faulty electrics or mechanics. Unfortunately there was no way of ascertaining why it had not released, and the possibility of it releasing later in the closed bomb-bay was cause for concern since it would cause a fire which you would not detect until the aircraft was truly ablaze. Since the fuel tanks were in the fuselage directly above the bomb-bay, it was fairly certain that this would lead to the loss of the aircraft (and you). I had one such incident at Lindholme. The second cause for concern was that you should set the bombsight computer with the correct data. This consisted of barometric pressure at sea level which was translated into altitude; wind velocity and the ballistic qualities of the bomb. Since the meteorological department were responsible for supplying the first two pieces of information and the weapons group supplied the ballistic information, they might as well have come along and dropped the damn thing! Next, it was important that the bomb be dropped from a stable platform. I didn't know how important this was until later since all our pilots at bombing school were experienced. If the plane was not stable at the time of release they could cast it away from the aimed trajectory by giving it a side push. Next; some bombs were not perfect ballistic elements, the vanes might be bent as on a dart. This condition produced a wobbly bomb called a "spinner". If one observed this, one had to warn them below that it was not an orthodox trajectory and might go wide.
Then there was the unexploded bomb that didn't flash on hitting the ground. It was very important that one had one's wits about one because if you lost sight of it and didn't see the flash, it meant a) that it hadn't gone off, or,b) that it had landed too far away from the range for them to see it.
If a farmer or other member of the public reported it as landing near to them you were "for it". It was always a great relief when the range reported, "Bomb observed". This was more so, when one took to high altitude bombing from 45,000 feet in the night over strange territory. The whole procedure was done inside the cabin on a radar-set. After the bomb left, there was no visual confirmation that it had gone and it took the bomb two and a half minutes to hit the ground, hopefully in the range area. An anxious time.
Here's a bit that I wrote for Steven Beeny's book, "The Canberra Experience." It's full of ripping yarns to use Biggles' terminology.
Visual bombing in the Canberra was something of a novelty - we didn't expect to have to bomb visually against the Rooskies. Our modus operandi in Exercises was a solo single run attack in which we dropped a bomb by Gee-H (radar) from 45,000 ft in the dark. Presumably it would be a "big-banger" to use fireworks terminology.
Anyway to describe visual bombing – one had to get out of the ejection seat and all the other attendant harness and crawl down forward past the pilot position to lay on a foam rubber mat. If you were above twelve thousand, oxygen was required and there was a long tube available to allow for the crawl. In the event of an emergency you would just have to make the sign of the cross – your parachute was in the ejection seat.
The weather was so uncertain that we spent most of our time waiting for an opportunity to drop practice-bombs visually. That meant that we had to see the ground from anything up to 25,000 feet altitude, something of an impossibility in wintertime England. I remember going up, "in case," and dodging around the clouds trying to see the target long enough to do a bombing run. A lot of the boys took chances and let the darn things go and had them land outside the target area. This was not recommended, leading to courts-of-inquiry and black marks. The bombs themselves were 25 lb practice bombs. They were toy-like in appearance and had a flash-compound in the tail which was observable by day or night. The range-operators were in concrete blockhouses and observed the flashes by taking bearing on them when they landed. Thus they could tell where, in relation to the target, it had landed, giving one the accuracy of the drop. It was always a relief to hear them acknowledge that your bomb had been observed. Forty years later I was to park next to one of these blockhouses without realizing where I was. It was Otmoor near Oxford.
The dropping of bombs visually gave one a chance to watch a rather interesting phenomenon. The bombsight pointed considerably ahead of the aircraft so that when you finally had the target in the sight and released the bomb you were still miles away. When you looked down (part of the procedure to make sure that the bomb had left the aircraft) hopefully the bomb would be on its way. They dropped away straight down, keeping pace with the forward speed of the aircraft. It looked as though the thing was going to hit straight below you, and straight below you were towns and farms! As the bomb fell farther and farther it got smaller and smaller, still going straight down. As it got closer to the ground its relative forward speed became apparent and the thing took off at great speed across the countryside like a rocket appearing to move horizontally until it finally plunged and exploded roughly where you wanted it. There were various vagaries connected with this procedure to add a little anxiety. Firstly, it was very important that when you pressed the button, the bomb should fall out! Sometimes they failed to release due to faulty electrics or mechanics. Unfortunately there was no way of ascertaining why it had not released, and the possibility of it releasing later in the closed bomb-bay was cause for concern since it would cause a fire which you would not detect until the aircraft was truly ablaze. Since the fuel tanks were in the fuselage directly above the bomb-bay, it was fairly certain that this would lead to the loss of the aircraft (and you). I had one such incident at Lindholme. The second cause for concern was that you should set the bombsight computer with the correct data. This consisted of barometric pressure at sea level which was translated into altitude; wind velocity and the ballistic qualities of the bomb. Since the meteorological department were responsible for supplying the first two pieces of information and the weapons group supplied the ballistic information, they might as well have come along and dropped the damn thing! Next, it was important that the bomb be dropped from a stable platform. I didn't know how important this was until later since all our pilots at bombing school were experienced. If the plane was not stable at the time of release they could cast it away from the aimed trajectory by giving it a side push. Next; some bombs were not perfect ballistic elements, the vanes might be bent as on a dart. This condition produced a wobbly bomb called a "spinner". If one observed this, one had to warn them below that it was not an orthodox trajectory and might go wide.
Then there was the unexploded bomb that didn't flash on hitting the ground. It was very important that one had one's wits about one because if you lost sight of it and didn't see the flash, it meant a) that it hadn't gone off, or,b) that it had landed too far away from the range for them to see it.
If a farmer or other member of the public reported it as landing near to them you were "for it". It was always a great relief when the range reported, "Bomb observed". This was more so, when one took to high altitude bombing from 45,000 feet in the night over strange territory. The whole procedure was done inside the cabin on a radar-set. After the bomb left, there was no visual confirmation that it had gone and it took the bomb two and a half minutes to hit the ground, hopefully in the range area. An anxious time.
During a mission in the Persian Gulf this VF-142 aircraft lost its radome when the latching mechanism failed. During the departure the radome came in contact with the canopy and broke out the forward glass and shattered the windscreen. The pilot suffered a broken right collarbone and glass in both eyes, but managed to bring the jet back to the ship for a perfect two wire landing.
Forward visibility was restricted to looking through a three inch hole in the left windscreen since the rest of the forward glass was so badly cracked.
The pilot was LCDR Joe Edwards and the RIO was LCDR Scott Grundmeier. LCDR Edwards was medevac'd to Bahrain for eye surgery then home to the US. Edwards went on to become a pilot for NASA in the Space Shuttle program.
Both crew members received Distinguished Flying Crosses for their remarkable achievement. Aircraft is believed to be 161433.
looks like it's going to crash.
MartG said:
The pilot suffered a broken right collarbone and glass in both eyes, but managed to bring the jet back to the ship for a perfect two wire landing.
Forward visibility was restricted to looking through a three inch hole in the left windscreen since the rest of the forward glass was so badly cracked.
To the ship??? Forward visibility was restricted to looking through a three inch hole in the left windscreen since the rest of the forward glass was so badly cracked.
Pretty amazing.
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