Practice bombs
 

Nope.
That's a 3kg bomb!
A 14 kg bomb is MILES bigger than that one!
BV:E

Yeah C-Bert my inititial feeling were the same as your regarding 14kg but I was just going by what the article said.

High Lander,

Are we so short of the real stuff that we have resorted to dropping 3kg jobbies.:eek: Kind of a new chemical weapon then eh?

... Yet another Lossie incident :oh:

Mostly Harmless says "Easier for the poor, stupid public to understand than saying "It has the same ballistic properties", I suppose. All this dumbing down is just *great*"

So it wasn't a "Smart bomb" then?

Glad that no-one was hurt on the ground, but come on....

Mac

A quick question for the light blue chaps. Will the aircrew be in the poo for this? Are we talking Discharge here or just a summary punishment?

Nah, they will just say the bombheads never fitted it. :O

The RAF has a No Blame Culture ..... it says!

- maybe they'll get an early release...................

That will be a weight off their mind.

Unless the Tornado is for a strange new reason carrying super-size 'practice' bombs, 3kg is indeed about right.

They have the same ballistic characteristics as the full size item, and being able to carry 4 on each of possibly several carriers gives the aircrew a few goes for training.

Hollow steel body, on test ranges a frangible nosecap with a 'smoke & flash' tiny firework is fitted ( about the same effect, really, as a bag of flour ) to give a visual cue for cameras & ground observers as to where it hit re. the target.

No explosive potential whatsoever, but it would disimprove one's day if supremely unlucky enough to receive one on the head.

On ranges, any accidental release, usually by incorrect switching but sometimes possibly by a fault in a stores management system, required a full brief from the Aircrew & Flight Test to show the Range Control ' what went wrong & why it isn't going to happen again ' before they were allowed to continue trials.

No particular blot on a pilot's ( we were Harrier trials team so no navigator -W/O ) record - it was a high stress environment with new aircraft or systems or both - but if he did it twice questions might be asked...

As to losing a practice bomb on a cross country flight, I imagine most of the above still applies.

00

nope, 14kg it says. Why would you doubt it? Here's the manufacturer's leaflet (NB it's the big one at the top of the picture).

http://www.portsmouth-aviation.co.uk...acticeBomb.pdf

I'm surprised you're not familiar with it.

Perhaps it was just a little heavy for the Harrier :rolleyes:

Seems to be a lot of assumptions that the aircrew knew that they had released a 14kg PB. You would have thought if that was the case (switch pigs during a SAP?) they would know where it landed. As I see it they knew that it was there when they took off and that it was missing when they landed 90 minutes later - from this my guess is it just fell off, probably whilst manoeuvering (sp?). The crew cannot be held to account for this. Perhaps the crutching mechanism on the CBLS was worn. Who knows.

Presumably the 14Kg one is the replacement for the 28lb practice bomb that we used back int the 60's.

r supwoods,

"The RAF has a No Blame Culture ..... it says!"

And whose fault is that ? :}



Anyway, we are apparently now training with little weapons to avoid casualties (and headlines) on either side to keep wee two jobbies happy

Another new weapon was pioneered in Belize in 87, christened "cluster SNEB",all down to worn catches on a SNEB can & a trail of unexploded rockets.