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Old 31st Mar 2014, 15:00
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Wensleydale
 
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The standard bomb sight at the start of the war was the Mk IX Course Setting Bomb Sight. All parameters (aircraft speed; height; bomb type; wind velocity etc) had to be manually set by the Bomb Aimer. The aircraft had to set a steady heading and the bomb sight could not cope with any aircraft manoeuvre on the bombing run. Later marks had an attachment for moving targets such as shipping.


The Mk XIV had many advantages - the main one being that aircraft movement was automatically fed from the aircraft's instrument system into a bombing computer that gave an output for the bomb sight leaving just 3 parameters for the bomb aimer to enter into the computer. This computer then fed an illuminated line onto a piece of gyro-stabilised Perspex in the bomb sight which the bomb aimer used to line up the target (think of the spitfire gyro-stabilised gun sight but as a straight line). Being stabilised, the bomb sight could cope with a certain amount of aircraft manoeuvre on the run in - a distinct advantage when running through a flak box! The disadvantage with the Mk XIV sight was that any damage to the aircraft systems could lead to loss of the entire system, in which case the bomb-aimer was issued with a "wiz-wheel" type computer (similar idea to the circular slide rule on the Nav Computer) which would allow him to either set up for a purely visual drop or indeed give a "dive-bombing" angle for the pilot to assist hitting the target!


A Google search gives lots of info and images of the various sights.


Edited to add... the Mk XIV bombsight and associated computer was the complete system - I am not sure if the bomb computers for the Mk XIV could also be used with the SABS sight and vice versa but I think that it is unlikely in which case the SABS sights fitted to the Lancaster specials flown by 617 and IX would have had their own specific computer.
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