Danny
Thanks for the Brevet reference and info regarding the wobble-pump. Yes 'Vengeance' is a good book, albeit with a slow start.
I remember reading about the hung-up bomb and the pilot failing to shake the thing off... with appalling consequences when he landed. It reminds me of an incident my father had... which wasn't as dangerous but probably wasn't very amusing at the time.
Before he joined 84 Squadron in the Western Desert, he was a staff pilot at 42 Air School in South Africa. They used the Fairey Battle for trainee bomb aimers among other training roles. On one occasion he returned from a training sortie to find a blanket of sea-fog rolling in over the airfield. It had covered the airfield buildings but the landing area was still clear. Out of youthful mischief, he circled the airfield a few times, knowing that the staff in the fog-bound buildings below would assume that the whole airfield was covered and that the ‘poor’ pilot was probably heading for a crash-landing.
On his final approach to land, he released the undercarriage to find that only one wheel had come down, the other one was still locked and retracted inside the wing. The little prank of a few moments ago was now transformed into serious situation. He rocked the aircraft, applied positive and negative G, and flew over the control tower to get them to make a visual check. It was well and truly stuck. He then made his approach to land. As he came in over the grass, he was joined by two fire engines racing alongside, one at each wing tip. From the cockpit he frantically waved for them to give him more clearance. After touch-down, he carefully kept up the wing that had the jammed wheel. At the last moment, the wing descended to the ground, rotating the airplane with a brisk swing to the left, before it came to rest. The damage was surprisingly light. The ground crew changed the wing-tip and a flap, and the aircraft was up in the air again in the afternoon! The fault was a defective undercarriage lock. Of course, aircraft technology was a lot less dependable than it is today.
