Pontious N
We had a couple of incidents in about 1968 operating out of Darwin dropping live 1000lb HE (non-retarded) rounds on an island range.
- First incident, briefed to free-fall drop 7 X bombs as singletons from, I think, 8000ft - not a good idea - rtb with schrapnel damage to undersurfaces.
- Second incident, briefed to free-fall drop 7 X bombs as singletons from a height ABOVE minimum safe dropping height. 1st bomb ok. 2nd bomb hung-up. SOPs said use Pilot's Emergerncy Safe Jettison (PESJ) to drop all remaining 6 bombs complete with their arming lanyards and therefore 'safe'. 1st attempt at PESJ resulted in 1 bomb releasing and exploding with about 50 yard error. 2nd to 5th attempts achieved similar results (can't remember the errors). We then tried 17 times to get rid of the original hang-up using yawing, positive and negative g pitching and just about everything else that came to mind, all to no avail. Whilst flying 'downwind' in perfectly smooth air for the 18th run we felt and heard a thump as the hang-up 'released' onto the bomb doors. On the final run-in we gently rocked the wings hoping to ensure the bomb was sitting in the middle (concave) area - didn't like the idea of 1000lb HE being crushed between a door and fuselage. We did a radar line-up and pilot release by manual bomb door selection to avoid a gross undershoot and we guessed right - a very lucky almost DH - then rtb with not too much fuel IIRC.
rts