gahooten@orion.arc.nasa.gov (Gregory A. Hooten) (11/07/90)
From: gahooten@orion.arc.nasa.gov (Gregory A. Hooten) Someone was stating a belief that the bomb load during WWII was fairly safe until they were dropped (in essence). This is strongly contradicted by Martin Caiden who stated that over 100 people died on take off when a B17 crashed and the whole bomb load went up. It set off the rest of the bombers loads, and killed the most of the squadran. One minute a squadron, then next, nothing. He talks about the whole procedure of loading bombs (without fuses) and how many are dropped on loading, but that until the fuses are in place there is little chance of them exploding. Unfortunately the fuses are placed before take off, and caused some serious mishaps. Interestingly enough, though, there was no mention that I recall about a load going off to gunfire in flight, so there may be vast differenced in what Caiden portrays as easily exploded and what is really needed to blow the suckers up. On engine fires, the G and later had self sealing OIL tanks in each engine to prevent the loss of oil and subsequent fire. Often times the loss of oil caused the fire and created a run away engine (not defined). This meant that the prop could not be feathered, and so was a drag on the plane the rest of the flight. All info comes from memory of reading B17 by Martin Caiden. Greg Hooten