Re: Norden Bomb Sight
- From: Cub Driver <warbird@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 28 Jul 2005 16:48:56 +0000 (UTC)
To my non-engineer's mind, it works like this: the bombardier finds
the target in the sight. The target is of course far ahead of the
aircraft, which is almost certainly drifting left or right with
respect to the target. He determined this by watching the target crawl
toward him, and compensated for it by turning a knob which eventually
stopped the drift. Another knob stopped the target from moving
laterally, thus compensating for the aircraft's speed (which otherwise
can't be known to the people in the plane).
In order for this to work at all, the bombardier of course must be
flying the plane. By all accounts, this was the most terrible moment
in the mission for the pilot and co-pilot, who are now simply
passengers watching the flak reach up for them.
I can't vouch for its technical description of the works of the
Norden, but a good history of bombing is America's Pursuit of
Precision Bombing, by Stephen MacFarland.
The U.S. spent almost as much money developing the Norden sight as it
did on developing the atomic bomb. In real life, it didn't work
particularly well. The problem seems to have been that too much
happened to the bomb after it left the aircraft--a problem that wasn't
solved until much later, indeed until quite recently.
-- all the best, Dan Ford
email warbird@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx (put Cubdriver in subject line)
Warbird's Forum: www.warbirdforum.com
Piper Cub Forum: www.pipercubforum.com
the blog: www.danford.net
In Search of Lost Time: www.readingproust.com
--
.
- References:
- Norden Bomb Sight
- From: weasel
- Norden Bomb Sight
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