And he walked away.

"ttyymmnn" (ttyymmnn)
03/05/2020 at 09:15 • Filed to: wingspan, Planelopnik

According to the French description that came with this photo, USAAF pilot 1LT Karl T. Hallberg from the 389th Fighter Squadron took off on December 31, 1944 for a mission over the Ruhr Valley. His P-47D was armed with a 500-pound bomb, but it failed to detach over the target. Despite his efforts, Halberg was unable to release the bomb, so he returned to base. Just before the plane touched down, the bomb released and exploded, obliterating the rear half of his fighter. Halberg was able to climb from the wreckage after it rolled to a stop, but then collapsed unconscious. Though he suffered a head injury, Halberg survived the accident.

DISCUSSION (14)

SBA Thanks You For All The Fish > ttyymmnn
03/05/2020 at 09:18

Any landing you can walk away from....

ttyymmnn > SBA Thanks You For All The Fish
03/05/2020 at 09:21

Even if you collapse from a head injury, but yeah. Thank you, Mr. Kartveli.

RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht > ttyymmnn
03/05/2020 at 09:25

“I’d like to see Leslie try that one! *cough*”

Kinja'd!!!

SBA Thanks You For All The Fish > ttyymmnn
03/05/2020 at 09:28

Well, it pushes the bounds of “a landing”... but yeah, given the circumstances.

There should be a book written about the strangest UX (unexploded ordnance) aviation experiences. I had a consulting gig in DC for awhile working on a program where, incidentally, I was exposed to the history of the Forrestal disaster— and, notably, the wide range of ordn ance they had rolling around the deck as the fire raged around the Navy’s fighter jets on the carrier deck .

That terrible week left a many-decades-long imprint on design and flight procedures in cases where you had UX hanging off the wing of a plane. It’s actually fascinating. (And, sadly, the Navy had all sorts of “leftovers” and “factory remnants” in the ordnance stores that day in 1967 ...)

ttyymmnn > SBA Thanks You For All The Fish
03/05/2020 at 09:44

I wrote a big piece on the For restal incident (disaster, fire, whatever you want to call it). There were some extraordinary heroics that day that saved the ship, and a lot of lives. But yeah, best not to have a bunch of unstable bombs lying around.

Snuze: Needs another Swede > ttyymmnn
03/05/2020 at 09:58

When I first got out of college I interviewed for a job as a “Stores Separation Engineer” down at Pa tuxent River Naval Air Station. It sounded like interesting work but I never did get a call back.

SBA Thanks You For All The Fish > ttyymmnn
03/05/2020 at 10:06

Yeah, apparently there was a lot of “old stock” around that had virtually no safety features. It was horrifying to read the Navy reports of what an awful goat rodeo it was.

ttyymmnn > SBA Thanks You For All The Fish
03/05/2020 at 10:16

Forrestal had received a delivery of 10-year-old bombs that had been improperly stored outdoors (in Guam, I think) and were unstable. The captain didn’t want them, but the pace of operations was so high that he needed them. The ordnance team said that they didn’t want to store the bombs belowdecks in case one exploded, so the captain told them to store the bombs on deck, providing the main ingredient of a recipe for disaster.

The first damage control party was almost completely wiped out when the first bomb went off, blowing a hole in the armor plated deck . Burning j et fuel from the deck poured down into living spaces below. In what was later called “a magnificent act of seamanship,” Commander Edwin Burke maneuvered the destroyer USS Rupertus to within 20 feet of Forrestal to bring her own fire hoses to bear on the conflagration. The combined actions of Rupertus and Forrestal’s crew saved the ship.

ttyymmnn > Snuze: Needs another Swede
03/05/2020 at 10:18

You would think that dropping things wouldn’t require so much technology. However, we’ve come a long way.

Kinja'd!!!

SBA Thanks You For All The Fish > ttyymmnn
03/05/2020 at 10:24

Somewhere I think I have a write-up on the specific inventory and their history— shockingly I think they (IIRC) had some pre-WWII era bomb stocks. I remember being astonished that some of the weapons (which were quite unstable-and-unsafe) were still in inventory that far into the conflict.

You can tell a Finn but you can't tell him much > ttyymmnn
03/05/2020 at 11:15

Science and engineering are hard. Turns out there is a lot of stuff that needs to happen just right for things to fall off an airplane just right without running into anything. Some of the stuff in the video looks like it violates the laws of physics when things start moving completely opposite the direction you’d expect them to. It turns out there is a lot of interactions between the aerodynamics of the airframe and the aerodynamics of the stores as things are separating.

Here is an interesting article on an F-14 stores separation test gone horribly wrong. It’s been posted here before by me, and I may have stumbled on it in something you posted originally. http://ejectionsite.com/F-14%20SHOOTDOWN.pdf

ttyymmnn > You can tell a Finn but you can't tell him much
03/05/2020 at 12:09

I’ve seen those videos. It is crazy how they react when going between the air around the plane and the rest of the air in the sky.

BaconSandwich is tasty. > You can tell a Finn but you can't tell him much
03/05/2020 at 20:18

I’d be curious to know how the majority of that footage was shot. Were all those failed drops during training/experimentation? Or do military aircraft contain on- board cameras to film stuff like that all the time?

gmporschenut also a fan of hondas > BaconSandwich is tasty.
03/05/2020 at 21:13

I believe they are mostly evaluation testing or training . The weapo ns and jets with orange paint are for weapon testing.

“t his AIM-132 ASRAAM is an inert weapon and shows the same pink and blue identification coloured rings as above.

It also has the orange (International Orange No 592) and black markings in the centre of the body and at the tail end. These markings indicate an evaluation version of the guided missile.

These colours are used when photographic records are required and allow easy identification of if the missile is rotating around its axis.”

http://www.fast-air.co.uk/raf-nato-weapons-markings/