Pure fantasy, never going to happen but ho hum.

[GwynO 16]

Ravenclaw's recent snaps of the all time sexiest jet ever used by the Wafu, excluding the Phantom, the Blackburn Buccaneer. In fact make that THE sexiest imho, so granted the Phantom could do more in terms of multi role but what floats my boat has always been tales of flying mach snot under the radar, one pass haul ass and expedite back to the O bar quicker than the time it takes for the first punch to be thrown in a mixed group of bootnecks and pongos. If said O bar happens to be under a floating runway then all the better.

 

I wait with the excitation of a twelve year old getting his hands on his first rifle, first thing will be a how low can you go bimble around the range, then to take it out for some sneaky low level bomb runs over Germany and see about luring a stoopid ass MiG on my tail only to get a face full of retard defence! Oh the mirth! And the screenshot opportunities! That all is within the realm of the possible so far, so on to the pure fantasy.

 

This isn't just regards the Banana Jet, but just about all the jets ever to come out either boxed or as add ons for Strike Fighters, basically it's to have a taste, even a slight tip of the tongue, monosodium glutamate, barest hint of a taste of any of the really cool wizardry the crews had to get to grips with IRL, and saved them from the countless death followed by death, followed by yet more death to AAA that my sorry ass encounters trying to drop bombs the really old way. Here is a basic outline of the various ways the Banana Jet crews had to help them. I love the code names for the techy bits, Blue Parrot bombing computers, Red Beard nukes, sounds like a night out at a gay disco, soo Wafu! Banana Jet anti dying kit

 

As mentioned, real life crews don't have the luxury of trial and error, re spawning to give it another go, and crews as well as aircraft are pretty expensive and not in unlimited supply so it makes sense to be as careful about saving them as possible, and that of course means finding ways to minimize the amount of time spent close to the target as well as maximising the distance at which the weapons can be dropped and still reasonably expect to hit, no surprise that even in WW1 the basics had been worked out, the problem that is of working out how to tell the pilot when he is at just the right point in time and space to drop his bombs when the following are known: distance to target, angle relative to target, speed relative to target, target's direction of travel (if applicable), wind direction and speed, ballistic properties of the weapon. Needless to say, the maths required for a human being to work all of that out at the pace required in the heat of battle was simply too much so various mechanical solutions where tried using cogs and wheels and optics, pretty basic but the the concept was good, the physics of what needed done was well known in WW1 it was just the technology that kept things back.

 

Throughout WW2 the technology kept improving, valve computers and so on meant the optics, cogs and wheels could now be tied up via some exceedingly clever boffins to the actual flight controls, things like the Norden bombsight and the Rip off with better lenses that could actually take control of the plane and fly the damn thing to the right point in time and space to drop the bombs. Well they weren't perfect by any means, but the technology was definitely getting better, the wizards continued to work on keeping the pilot focused on staying alive rather than fighting the math, radar data meant the computers could work in the night, through bad weather, or from even longer distances and heights, admittedly not perfect, but as everything in nature or technology a work in progress.

 

All through the Cold War era, all or certainly most of those jets we love so much from Strike Fighters employed various electro mechanical aids to bombing, so much so that direct bombing using the fixed mark on the combining glass became a "what to do if absolutely EVERYTHING else has gone tits up" method, but I don't like to think that absolutely everything has gone tits up every time I climb into my virtual favourite jet ever. There are sims out there that include a flavour, some quite a lot of flavour, of post 1940s bombing in jets, but all bar none of these focus on relatively recent platforms. There are sims of the Falcon, the Flanker, the Hornet and others, and there are more World War 2 sims than you can shake an angry fist at, but my love has always been for the glory days of jet bombers, the 1950s to the 1970s, the days when the "smart" part was the platform not the bomb and when attack run meant tearing away at mach snot, low enough to touch the tree tops, popping up at the last possible moment, trusting the technology with one hand and holding your life in the other keeping one eye out for tracers, one on the hud or the needles keeping it centred, staying with it.. and BOMBS AWAY!

 

My ultimate flight sim/game fantasy is to have the subject matter and graphics of Strike fighters, but with the functionality of Falcon type sims, something in between that can give some suspension of disbelief when I'm bombing along feet off the ground, that for once, just for once, those white coats haven't botched it up, that the gadget is working, that just this once absolutely everything hasn't already gone tits up. I fear it's too much of a fantasy, the way things are going the people who still buy flight games in the future will never think they missed anything, they will only assume that aircraft went from dive bombing to smart bombs over night and so miss out the tastiest chapter of combat jet flying ever. Such a pity if that happens but cest la vie as they say in France.

Edited July 29, 2010 by GwynO

[ShrikeHawk 384]

Okay dude, you just made flying a bomber seem hot and sexy. I didn't think that was possible.

 

Is it any coincidence that Buccaneers have a slim waist and full hips like a porno star?

 

What's an "O bar?"

Edited July 29, 2010 by ShrikeHawk

[FastCargo 412]

Dude...you really gotta just let this go.

 

I did this for real...the challenge was in everything BUT letting the computer drop the weapon for you.

 

It's just not that interesting. You want to give yourself a challenge? Do the math at the front end, then try to hit the parameters while you're trying to survive in order to get that shack...especially in a non-fighter type aircraft.

 

FC

[Lexx_Luthor 57]

Thanks, big new site for me ~> http://www.blackburn-buccaneer.co.uk/0_Contents.html

 

I'm looking for info on the proposed supersonic Bucc. Any ideas?

[Slartibartfast 153]

Okay dude, you just made flying a bomber seem hot and sexy. I didn't think that was possible.

 

Is it any coincidence that Buccaneers have a slim waist and full hips like a porno star?

 

What's an "O bar?"

 

O' Bar generally means Offices Club in UK Military Parlance... Generally Navy... As to the Buccaneer look at it from a Top View...

 

http://www.google.at/imgres?imgurl=http://richard.ferriere.free.fr/3vues/buccaneer_1_3v.jpg&imgrefurl=http://richard.ferriere.free.fr/3vues/B-3vues.html&usg=__0O1RrEeKVPUQDdn77U07Lv5t6WQ=&h=1024&w=681&sz=126&hl=de&start=7&um=1&itbs=1&tbnid=517atR36ct9TzM:&tbnh=150&tbnw=100&prev=/images%3Fq%3DBlackburn%2BBuccaneer%26um%3D1%26hl%3Dde%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26sa%3DN%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-GB:official%26tbs%3Disch:1

 

Then scroll down to the Buccaneer...

 

Might explain it... a bit better.

 

To be honest I prefer my Sims in 2 flavours... one ala Strike Fighters where I can pick up go dogfight drop some iron and call it a day... I remember the first time I played Falcon and it fried my head as I decided on starting the jet with a cold cockpit... Falcon is a great game but sometimes it just far too much... Strike Fighters is a great sim especially with community and the mod makers (Thank you to you guys) Also I find that the more that the modders learn the more complex the game gets... Ala the Vietnam mod with Flak so thick you could walk on it... I may be getting the wrong thing about what you are saying GywnO if I am I apologise but I think SF2 is moving in the direction that you require...

Edited July 29, 2010 by Slartibartfast

[GwynO 16]

FC I know you did it for real, and at speeds that could make your eyeballs bleed, and I wish I could understand how anyone could have been relied on just to use mental arithmetic and bombing tables to get the drop right, please tell me you're joking? The release point being off by a microsecond means the difference between hit or miss, mission success, risk worth taking or mission failed, someone else has to go do it all over again, unacceptable. I understand there were times when direct would have been preferred on some, non pre briefed targets given the hit and miss nature of the technology itself, but the vast majority of stories I have read about pre briefed targets being bombed during those three decades of interest mentions fire control in some way or other to get the bombs off at the right microsecond, especially so I should hope in the kind of uber sex planes you flew

[FastCargo 412]

What makes this so hard to believe?

 

Perhaps you should remember the story of Gordon Cooper.

 

Towards the end of the Faith 7 flight there were mission-threatening technical problems. During the 19th orbit the capsule had a power failure, carbon dioxide levels began rising and the cabin temperature jumped to over a hundred degrees Fahrenheit. Cooper fell back on his understanding of star patterns, took manual control of the tiny capsule and successfully estimated the correct pitch for re-entry into the atmosphere. Some precision was needed in the calculation since if the capsule came in too deep g-forces would be too large and if its trajectory was too shallow it would absorb too much heat and burn up. Cooper drew lines on the capsule window to help him check his orientation before firing the re-entry rockets. "So I used my wrist watch for time," he later recalled, "my eyeballs out the window for attitude. Then I fired my retrorockets at the right time and landed right by the carrier.

 

That aside, lets talk about a few things.

 

First, I didn't drop bombs, I dropped 'sticks'. We bombed areas, large targets, runways, etc. We dropped entire bays...or had other weapons where accuracy to 10s of feet was irrelevant.

 

However, we frequently practiced with single bombs, even BDU-33s (which looks slightly wierd...dropping a single coffee can out of a intercontinental bomber).

 

And we found we were simply better than the computer...on average.

 

There were several reasons for this:

 

1) In a perfect day, in a perfect test situation, computers could do it better. However, there was rarely a perfect day where everything was running at 100%. Even slight degradations in perceived inputs could result in significant errors. For a cold war computer, with less computing power than your cell phone, designed to drop weapons with yields in the kiloton range, this wasn't an issue. There were times in terminal manuvering phase that the computer simply couldn't keep up with the calculations....vs a good OSO who had already anticipated the changes would and get the weapon out on time.

 

2) OSOs and crews in general did this stuff in their sleep. We constantly competed against each other, and kept trying to find ways to make the other crews buy beer. You would be surprised how good you can get when you get free beer. I knew guys who would consult with MX to determine the exact amount of time it look for all the relays to fire after the button was pressed. One guy in particular even went so far as to determine how far the button had to be pressed...that's a little hardcore...

 

3) The 'fat finger/GIGO' factor. This still is a problem today of an error creeping into the computer by accident. The computer is dumb, and simply drops when the conditions were met. Verses an operator who could look at it, realize it wasn't right based his old school calculations, and drops on time.

 

4) If no one has figured it out by now, low altitude level bombing of a point target is highly inaccurate on the best of days...even if everything is 100%. All the possible interactions the weapon had after it was released meant that you always had a fudge factor. Even an article either you or streakeagle posted talking about the accuracy of radar bombing talked about the accuracy using radar was quite good...if you were using a full set of weapons to bomb an area. Accuracies now were simply not feasible back then.

 

FC

[GwynO 16]

Thanks for sharing that! Amazing what free beer can achieve as an incentive, maybe I would stop whining if I had some free beer as well

I don't dispute any of that, I know the theory behind the physics and that this is still taught to this day, but just from what I have read it flies contrary to all of that to imagine that direct was the method of choice in practice when as you point out, today's levels of accuracy weren't even imagined. The gadgets were good enough for military purposes when it came to getting a stick of bombs onto a target that was preferably mapped to within feet from recon photographs, maps and all that, and if I'm hearing you right, s**t hot crews could do better than a computer suffering from a dose of GIGO which just highlights how awesome your breed of Cold War Warriors and aircraft were, absolute legends.

 

I would just like the option though, the choice. My preference, and I wouldn't push it on anyone but it would be nice to have for those that want it and it could always be turned off by default. I know the arguments about time and money and staff, I know, that's why I say it's pure fantasy, but can't help thinking about it none the less, it must have been the hours spent avidly reading my dad's magazines (insert joke) when I was a kid where almost all the descriptions of bombing involved fire control computers and those stories never read less exciting as a result, proper nerve jangling stuff that required balls of steel. What you describe is even more amazing, balls of steel and the computational skills of Einstein, but if that's the way it was then that's the way it was. Just another reason why I would most likely suck at being a real pilot too!

 

As far as the Buccaneer goes, I have one additional source of information as well. One of Dad's best friends grew up to be an actual real life Buccaneer pilot! Not only a pilot but later an instructor on them up at Lossiemouth, so if anyone knows better what they did with them and how it would be him! What are the chances he would have pictures of the pilot display (must call Dad..)

[Lexx_Luthor 57]

FC::

And we found we were simply better than the computer...on average.

Use the Force FC.

 

Reminds me of my physics sub who worked Oxcart long ago as engineer. After class I said, you did all that with slide rules? He said he never thought about it like that but yes he did hehe.

[FastCargo 412]

Trust me, it wasn't magical...it was practice, and putting the aircraft in preset parameters to make the drop work.

 

Also, for all intents, you were aiming with a shotgun, not with a sniper rifle. The idea was to put the center of your stick on your target...so you could have slop in your equations.

 

Here's an interesting article...take a look at the CEP numbers: http://goliath.ecnext.com/coms2/gi_0199-5320632/Radar-bombing-during-Rolling-Thunder.html

 

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_hb3101/is_2_53/ai_n29269246/pg_4/?tag=content;col1

 

CEPs were regularly in the 3000 foot range.

 

FC

[GwynO 16]

Thankks for the links, had a brief glance as am away for a week now and a tiny screen isn't ideal for reading, will definitly be checking them out when back. Cheers, I know I get a bit obsessed at times, a Falcon level or DCS level sim for the 50s 70s jet bombers isn't going to happen unless I learn to code or win the lottery to pay someone to do it. Wish I had just one tenth of a percent of the awesome experinces you must have had! It was one of my childhood dreams to run away to the States and somehow get naturalised and join the AF to be an F-111 navigator.

 

Anyhoos, am in Lonon at the mo and planning to get an all round aviation fix at the RAF museum in London.

 

See ya'll in a week, cheers.

 

G.