# Bomber: Flop or Not



## Zipper730 (Mar 8, 2018)

Frankly if there's a fighter thread, there should be a bomber thread. For the sake of semantics, attack planes should go here as well...


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## Shortround6 (Mar 8, 2018)

OK, what is a Flop?

Plane doesn't fly properly?
Plane can't perform original mission, in some cases 4-8 years after work starts and enemy defences have changed?
Engine maker stuffs up and can't deliver engines making anywhere near the promised power?


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## pbehn (Mar 8, 2018)

In terms of WW2 almost all strategic bombers were "flops" in terms of the original idea of bombing nations into submission by daylight bombing. Defensive fire was never sufficient and bomb load and accuracy never enough either. Chief flop on the British side I would say was the Stirling, 13 ft longer than a B17.


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## Shortround6 (Mar 8, 2018)

Well, we are in the post war section 

What turned some bombers into flops in the post war era (including the 1950s) were the US Nike Ajax (introduced 1954) the British Bloodhound (1958) the Russian S-25 (1955) and the SA-2/S-75 (1957) which turned high altitude flyovers into a not very profitable attack profile. 
Now please note that these programs had all been in the works for years so their expected effect was causing changes in purchasing and tactics even before they were deployed.


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## Zipper730 (Mar 8, 2018)

Shortround6 said:


> OK, what is a Flop?


It includes a number of things ranging from

Bad design specifications: The specifications were such that common sense should have ensured such a design never made it off the drawing boards (or on them to be honest!).
Major structural defects that manage to escape flight test: Particularly if these defects have a way of appearing frequently and/or have almost no chance of survival.
Dangerous handling characteristics that weren't weeded out by the time the aircraft entered service: These traits usually don't come with some kind of unexpectedly redeeming quality by accident. These handling characteristics can also include things like excessively light or heavy control forces.
Coming up unacceptably short of performance specifications: Now some planes come up a little short here and there, but prove effective enough; some are so underperforming that they prove to be incapable of doing anything they were either intended or currently expected to do.
Inadequate avionics/equipment for the job: The aircraft are either ineffective against projected or actual defenses, are incapable of being modified for such a purpose, as well as other issues such as lack of practical survival equipment (such as not having ejection seats in a day where all planes do).
Propulsion: The engines have various problems ranging from inadequate power, excessive fuel-consumption, dangerous characteristics to suffer un-contained failures, particularly if effective replacements exist and aren't used.

I have a good list of aircraft that would be considered flops for various reasons, not all are bombers, and are not all post-war, but many would probably agree with me

YFM-1: Designed as a "bomber destroyer" and "escort-fighter". It was incapable of flying fast enough to catch bombers, let alone fighters; it had a waist-gunner (part of the perceived escort requirement) the was unnecessary (he was also a radio operator), as well as two gunners in pods that were basically superfluous and would have been incapable of escaping their aircraft, as well as a co-pilot that was not really necessary (basically three unnecessary crew members, arguably four). It lacked the structural strength to pull g-loads needed to take out fighters, and it had an APU system that basically ran everything and had no back-ups, which would basically render the airplane useless if it failed
P-59: Was barely capable of exceeding 400 miles an hour and would have no real edge over existing piston engined aircraft.
F6U-1: Underpowered, overweight, had stability issues, and described as one of the most uninspiring planes ever



> Well, we are in the post war section


That's correct, so it'd be preferable to start from September 3, 1945 until 1973.


> What turned some bombers into flops in the post war era (including the 1950s) were the US Nike Ajax (introduced 1954) the British Bloodhound (1958) the Russian S-25 (1955) and the SA-2/S-75 (1957) which turned high altitude flyovers into a not very profitable attack profile.


I'm not sure how much fear the SA-1 (S-25) provoked in the US/NATO, the SA-2 did however produce such an effect.

It didn't appear that everybody felt it was as big a threat as one would expect as from 1958-1962, the USAF had still worked on high-altitude profiles (as well as low), and the RAF had some approaches that would be up high as well. My guess is some people felt they could get through, others didn't. The politicians seemed to actually be more worried than the generals.



pbehn said:


> In terms of WW2 almost all strategic bombers were "flops" in terms of the original idea of bombing nations into submission by daylight bombing.


When I say bomber in this case, I'm covering all bombers from attack-aircraft to heavy-bombers.


BTW: I would not be opposed to creating a flop or not thread in the WWII era, but I worry it'd be merged with this one...


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## Shortround6 (Mar 8, 2018)

The flops faded quite a bit after WW II. Just for the Americans they went from 13 wind tunnels in 1938 to over 40 in 1945. There were a lot fewer surprises in flight testing. Most airplane makers had entire departments devoted to structural strength post war compared to one or two "stress men" with perhaps a few assistants pre war. And that meant one or two stress men for the entire company, not one or two per project. 
The design by the seat of the pants had pretty much disappeared by the end of WW II. 
Obviously large companies had an advantage. One writer claimed Boeing, by the time they were working on the B-52, had more engineers and draftsmen working in the landing gear dept than the British did on all aspects of all three "V" bombers put together. This also explains the rapid progress of some projects. 

there were only about 3 1/2 nations building high performance aircraft after WW II. The US, The British, The Russians and the French are the 1/2. (Swedes did pretty good too, but they tended to work on plane at a time). They all built numbers of experimental aircraft to investigate flight and aerodynamic problems close to the sound barrier. The Area rule was discovered and put into use before any really large numbers of aircraft were built.
For the US Westinghouse dropped the ball on engines and never recovered. Some designs that used the last Westinghouse jets went down the tubes but most American and British jets were able to make the needed power after around 1950 or so. 

Be careful of just which years you are looking at as in some case right after WW II there may have been some widely differing opinions on problems concerning the speed of sound which modified expectations of performance.


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## Donivanp (Mar 8, 2018)

How about the AJ1 Savage, Carrier based (Strategic Bomber), While it did perform it's function (flying on and off carriers) I would caution it's capability (save for a one way trip to deliver successfully an atomic weapon. Just my opinion but hey.


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## swampyankee (Mar 9, 2018)

Quite a few nuclear bombing mission plans seem to have been quite willing to accept very high loss rates, possibly because there wouldn’t be anything to return to, especially for nuclear bombers flying from France or the UK. With the likely damage to bases and command and control systems, planning on returning bombers being met by tankers was also likely optimistic.

Flops, though? The A-5 couldn’t perform its design role, due to a design decision by North American.


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## Donivanp (Mar 9, 2018)

swampyankee said:


> The A-5 couldn’t perform its design role, due to a design decision by North American.


True, oh so true. It had a hard time keeping fuel cells in on take off!


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## Zipper730 (Mar 9, 2018)

Donivanp said:


> How about the AJ1 Savage, Carrier based (Strategic Bomber), While it did perform it's function (flying on and off carriers) I would caution it's capability (save for a one way trip to deliver successfully an atomic weapon. Just my opinion but hey.


The aircraft was designed for both the delivery of conventional and nuclear ordinance technically, and even in nuclear missions, the goal is to actually not get killed in the process (believe it or not).

The aircraft's control forces were said to be excessively light due to the configuration of the hydraulics system, which made possible over-control. To make it better, when they were off, the control forces became very heavy, and might very well have reduced roll control to a level that would be inadequate for bringing the plane aboard deck. The hydraulic system may have been damage prone.



swampyankee said:


> Quite a few nuclear bombing mission plans seem to have been quite willing to accept very high loss rates


And that's on the way *in*. There would be problems on the way out as well

Many command and control systems or their relays would be destroyed making it difficult to get messages to the right people, as well as coordinate things, like (as you said) aerial refueling
Many air-bases would be destroyed making it hard for aircraft to find places to land, also refueling aircraft would not be able to land and refuel themselves
To avoid counter-attack, there would be the risk of enemy aircraft using IFF spoofing, so our own aircraft would have to be constantly changing IFF's every certain number of seconds or minutes: In the event of damage to the IFF system, or forgetfulness, that plane would probably get shot down by it's own side.



> Flops, though? The A-5 couldn’t perform its design role, due to a design decision by North American.


You mean the bomb-train?


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## swampyankee (Mar 9, 2018)

Zipper730 said:


> The aircraft was designed for both the delivery of conventional and nuclear ordinance technically, and even in nuclear missions, the goal is to actually not get killed in the process (believe it or not).
> 
> The aircraft's control forces were said to be excessively light due to the configuration of the hydraulics system, which made possible over-control. To make it better, when they were off, the control forces became very heavy, and might very well have reduced roll control to a level that would be inadequate for bringing the plane aboard deck. The hydraulic system may have been damage prone.
> 
> ...



Exactly that.

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## Zipper730 (Mar 9, 2018)

Why did they do that? How hard would it have been to have simply placed the position of the bombs in a bay underneath the fuselage instead of a tube in the middle?


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## Graeme (Mar 9, 2018)

Zipper730 said:


> Why did they do that?



From a 60 year old magazine article - so they could drop stores at supersonic speeds...


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## Zipper730 (Mar 10, 2018)

Graeme said:


> From a 60 year old magazine article - so they could drop stores at supersonic speeds...


I thought you could just punch it out using explosive bolts...


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## tyrodtom (Mar 11, 2018)

If explosive bolts had been used, they wouldn't have worked. It takes more than gravity to get bombs past the supersonic airflow around the aircraft.
There have been numerous accidents where dropped stores didn't release cleanly, staying near the dropping aircraft , and even sometimes colliding with it. And that's at high sonic speeds, not supersonic.

The bomb racks themselves ( in the 50s and up ) were attached with explosive bolts, but they were only used at slower speeds as a failsafe if a bomb hung on the rack and wouldn't release. In that case you released bomb rack along with the bomb hung on it. The explosive bolts didn't "punch" anything out, they just destroyed the bolts holding the bomb rack to the aircraft and allowed gravity to take over.

If you used explosives to try and force the bomb downward, you'd also disturb the flight of the aircraft, probably not a good idea at supersonic speeds.

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## Zipper730 (Mar 11, 2018)

tyrodtom said:


> If explosive bolts had been used, they wouldn't have worked. It takes more than gravity to get bombs past the supersonic airflow around the aircraft.


I remember with the XB-70 they had some means of punching out a store or the plane wouldn't have worked, the YF-12 also used some kind of explosive charge system to blow 'em free.


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## Shortround6 (Mar 11, 2018)

In some cases they may have used hydraulic rams. 

But please think about it. 

If you "jettison" a 2000lb store with even 10fps downward velocity (regardless of mechanism used) you are going to have a similar force pushing the airplane (or local structure) upward. You have a low velocity but large projectile "cannon" you are dealing with the recoil from. 

Not saying it wasn't done, just that it requires a lot thought/planning to deal with the consequences.

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## tyrodtom (Mar 11, 2018)

Zipper730 said:


> I remember with the XB-70 they had some means of punching out a store or the plane wouldn't have worked, the YF-12 also used some kind of explosive charge system to blow 'em free.



The YF-12 was a interceptor, it never carried bombs. Missiles have their own method of separation built in.
The XB-70, all 2 of them, never dropped any bombs that I'm aware of. So whatever system they had was never tested.
Though I do wonder how the XB-70 planned to do it. 
But with the probable size of the bombs planned to be dropped from the B-70, there may not have been a problem. A 10,000 plus lb. bomb is going down no matter what the aerodynamic flow is near the aircraft.

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## Zipper730 (Mar 11, 2018)

Shortround6 said:


> In some cases they may have used hydraulic rams.





> If you "jettison" a 2000lb store with even 10fps downward velocity (regardless of mechanism used) you are going to have a similar force pushing the airplane (or local structure) upward. You have a low velocity but large projectile "cannon" you are dealing with the recoil from.


I know



tyrodtom said:


> The YF-12 was a interceptor, it never carried bombs. Missiles have their own method of separation built in.


Oh, missiles don't always separate right either...


> The XB-70, all 2 of them, never dropped any bombs that I'm aware of. So whatever system they had was never tested.


They would have had to have one though, and they didn't shoot it out the back...


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## tyrodtom (Mar 11, 2018)

Tell me this then, Where was the XB-70's bomb bay ???

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## pbehn (Mar 11, 2018)

tyrodtom said:


> Tell me this then, Where was the XB-70's bomb bay ???


It is now in Mumbai.

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## Shortround6 (Mar 11, 2018)

Some aircraft, Like F-106s lowered the missiles into the airflow before launch. 







rather high drag but then you had high speed airflow over the fins and control surfaces as the motor ignited. Missile wasn't going to perform some crazy gyration as it left a weapons bay. 
Some planes used spoilers in front of the bomb bay. some didn't give much in details.


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## Zipper730 (Mar 12, 2018)

tyrodtom said:


> Tell me this then, Where was the XB-70's bomb bay ???


The bomb bay is located roughly in between the air intakes


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## tyrodtom (Mar 12, 2018)

To answer my own question about the bomb bay, it well to the rear of the intakes, centered between the six engines.

I don't think they spend much design time on the bomb bay, or it's use. Early in the design phase of the XB-70 they knew a mission at the speeds and altitude it would attain was not likely to succeed, so it was turned into a high speed research aircraft to gather information for the USA version of the SST.


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## vikingBerserker (Mar 12, 2018)

I believe there were one or two inline center, starting not too far behind the front landing gear.


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## Graeme (Mar 13, 2018)

This area?






What's that "ramp" seen in these shots?....

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## Graeme (Mar 13, 2018)

tyrodtom said:


> I don't think they spend much design time on the bomb bay, or it's use.



That's what I'm reading - for these test vehicles the area designed for the bomb-bay was dedicated to monitoring equipment.


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## Zipper730 (Mar 13, 2018)

tyrodtom said:


> To answer my own question about the bomb bay, it well to the rear of the intakes, centered between the six engines.


I should have said "inlet", as that would have been more accurate (the inlet was quite long)


> I don't think they spend much design time on the bomb bay, or it's use. Early in the design phase of the XB-70 they knew a mission at the speeds and altitude it would attain was not likely to succeed, so it was turned into a high speed research aircraft to gather information for the USA version of the SST.


It's a bit more complicated than that...

There seemed to be an excessive concern about the SA-2 Guideline after Gary Powers was shot down: Some believed that it would make all our bombers obsolete in the high altitude role
This mentality was not shared by all in the USAF and RAF to at least 1962 (I can go into additional detail if you would wish)
The B-70A would have had better jammers than the B-52, and considerably higher speed, it's maximum maneuverability likely would have been better as well due to some comments about testing for low altitude, subsonic flights (I'm not sure if the bomb-nav system would tumble during these maneuvers ironically)
The engines of the aircraft (mentioned in a book about the B-70), as well as the inlet design (mentioned by the A/C's chief engineer) were rated not to mach 3, but mach 4 which would have made it far more difficult to intercept than many would be lead to believe, and I'm not sure who knew what (There are security clearances higher than the President of the United States, as well as the fact that LeMay had actively tried to keep the SIOP from the President), which would have affected decision making
Some were also concerned that the USSR would, like us, attempt to develop nuclear-tipped SAM's
The fact that the aircraft had a lenticular missile-defense system (basically it's a disc shaped missile), with at least test-concepts achieving 250g by the time Mach 3 would be reached (and that's not a typo), and actual designs said to have at least half the turning circle as current missiles (at speed), it would have likely had the means to destroy quite a number of missiles sent it's way (which at the time would have been more a threat than the fighters).



Graeme said:


> This area?
> 
> View attachment 485785


That's it!


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## tyrodtom (Mar 13, 2018)

The B-70 program was cancelled 3 years BEFORE the XB-70's first flight.
As it was just a little over 250 hours flight time logged by both examples together.
Most of what you're stating is theory only, not tested in real flight.

The Francis Gary Powers episode is well known to me, he's from my home town, my older brother went to school with him, his family's home is about 4 miles away. 
I lived thru that drama when I was 13.

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## swampyankee (Mar 13, 2018)

The B-70 was also butting into the simple fact that ICBMs and SLBMs were quite capable of performing the nuclear bombardment role. I also strongly suspect that the two marketing points for manned bombers -- the potential for recall and the ability to find and attack "hidden command centers" -- were largely illusory.


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## Zipper730 (Mar 13, 2018)

tyrodtom said:


> The B-70 program was cancelled 3 years BEFORE the XB-70's first flight.


Correct, however many of the things that slowed down it's development and entry into service had to do with a desire to avoid excessive military spending

The USAF for it's B-52 replacement alone effectively procured two aircraft instead of one: WS-110 & WS-125
WS-110 would become the B-70
WS-125 was a nuclear-powered supersonic bomber
Cost was estimated at $3.9 billion
While WS-110 would have been more expensive had it been pursued alone because some of the same bomb/nav systems were incorporated: The fact is that fundamentally, WS-110 by itself would cost way less than both together

The nuclear powered bomber was felt to not be particularly feasible, and this changed ultimately because of a mention in Flight magazine about speculations about the development of Soviet nuclear powered planes (which turned out to be untrue): I honestly think somebody in either the USAF or AEC made it all up and leaked it to them for the following reasons.
AEC managed the Aircraft Nuclear Propulsion (ANC) program along with the USAF
The USAF wanted a supersonic nuclear program
If evidence came up that the Russians are producing a nuclear powered bomber, we have to do it (even if it's not necessary for our needs) simply because the Cold War was about economic systems instead of simply military matters. The Cold War might very well have been the biggest and most expensive penis-waving contest in human history 

The US Navy had some supersonic bomber designs as well
The A3J/A-5 Vigilante: Entered service, albeit only as a reconnaissance aircraft. I would say the USN profited pretty handsomely off that one as the RA-5C could still deliver nuclear ordinance
The P6M Sea-Master: It's ability to fly at Mach 0.89 a few hundred feet off the deck, as well as operate off water gave it some good odds of getting through (better than the B-47 and B-52, almost as good as the B-58, arguably better in some ways).
Nuclear-powered P6M Derivative: It was a different aircraft, and somewhat larger than the baseline design. I'm not sure if it retained the ability to fly at 0.9 down-low or the same 6g strength (technically the P6M was rated for 3.8 x 1.5, but it was looped at 6g once), but the incredible range presented by nuclear power seems more useful down-low than up high.
A supersonic, conventionally powered flying boat: There seemed to be some designs, at least one which had a similar inlet and wedge splitter to the XB-70, but upside down, with swept wings, and up-turned wingtips; after takeoff, the aircraft would execute a half roll and the nose would be allowed... basically it would turn right-side up with the cockpit where it is and basically be a mini XB-70 in flight
A supersonic, nuclear-powered flying-boat: I'm not sure how fast it was, but it was nuclear-powered

The expenditures were reaching pathological proportions (truthfully, they probably reached pathological levels well before this point), and with each new-generation aircraft becoming increasingly more expensive than it's predecessor (it didn't matter, it seemed what type), one could only expect to fork over even more the next time around...

I think they were looking for ANYTHING that would break this cycle and they saw the ICBM and cruise missiles as good alternatives. Some might very well have seen bombers as genuinely out-dated, but expenditures seemed to definitely sour things quite a bit.


> Most of what you're stating is theory only


In what ways?


> The Francis Gary Powers episode is well known to me


Okay



swampyankee said:


> The B-70 was also butting into the simple fact that ICBMs and SLBMs were quite capable of performing the nuclear bombardment role.


Most importantly, they were cheaper!


> I also strongly suspect that the two marketing points for manned bombers -- the potential for recall and the ability to find and attack "hidden command centers" -- were largely illusory.


How was the ability for recall illusory?


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## swampyankee (Mar 13, 2018)

Zipper730 said:


> Correct, however many of the things that slowed down it's development and entry into service had to do with a desire to avoid excessive military spending
> 
> The USAF for it's B-52 replacement alone effectively procured two aircraft instead of one: WS-110 & WS-125
> WS-110 would become the B-70
> ...



I as said, I suspect it was illusory, mostly because this does not seem to fit with the general, irrefutable nature of retaliation that MAD requires. There are also, alas, no checks-and-balances on the nuclear launch codes.


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## Zipper730 (Mar 13, 2018)

swampyankee said:


> I as said, I suspect it was illusory, mostly because this does not seem to fit with the general, irrefutable nature of retaliation that MAD requires.


Far as I know there were means to recall the bombers.


> There are also, alas, no checks-and-balances on the nuclear launch codes


What do you mean?


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## swampyankee (Mar 13, 2018)

Zipper730 said:


> Far as I know there were means to recall the bombers.



I don't doubt that there are; I'm just not sure they'd work.



Zipper730 said:


> What do you mean?



Just what I said: president says go, they launch. Of this, I was told by a former naval person whose assignments included ships with nuclear weapons.


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## tyrodtom (Mar 13, 2018)

SAC had various programs from sometimes in the late 50s to late 60s, Chrome Dome, Head Start, etc., where bombers flew long missions in a race track patterns just outside of Soviet territory, being refueled to stay aloft maybe even 20 hours or more. If they received no coded message to proceed across the border for a strike they returned to base, after being replaced by another B-52.

Now if they had received that coded message to cross the border for a nuclear strike on Russia, They may or may not have been a way to recall them. Any crew receiving the go ahead would at that point consider there to be a war already started, and any recall notice would be suspected as a Russian trick.

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## Shortround6 (Mar 13, 2018)

This is also pre-satellite communication (except for a few experiments) and so even at high altitude you would need airborne radio relay aircraft or low frequency radios to follow the earth's curvature, and you are going to have to contend with some pretty powerful jamming signals being thrown out on a variety of frequencies just on general principals.


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## Graeme (Mar 13, 2018)

Zipper730 said:


> The nuclear powered bomber was felt to not be particularly feasible, and this changed ultimately because of a mention in Flight magazine about speculations about the development of Soviet nuclear powered planes (which turned out to be untrue): I honestly think somebody in either the USAF or AEC made it all up and leaked it to them for the following reasons.


Flight or the December '58 edition of Aviation Week? Browsing the net there's a different scenario out there - the US DoD fed the magazine bullshit, because well, they didn't like them...


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## Graeme (Mar 14, 2018)

But then there were a lot of unsubstantiated claims and flag-waving in the magazines from that era of the Cold War...


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## Zipper730 (Mar 14, 2018)

swampyankee said:


> Just what I said: president says go, they launch. Of this, I was told by a former naval person whose assignments included ships with nuclear weapons.


Okay



tyrodtom said:


> SAC had various programs from sometimes in the late 50s to late 60s, Chrome Dome, Head Start, etc., where bombers flew long missions in a race track patterns just outside of Soviet territory, being refueled to stay aloft maybe even 20 hours or more. If they received no coded message to proceed across the border for a strike they returned to base, after being replaced by another B-52.
> 
> Now if they had received that coded message to cross the border for a nuclear strike on Russia, They may or may not have been a way to recall them. Any crew receiving the go ahead would at that point consider there to be a war already started, and any recall notice would be suspected as a Russian trick.


Even one with proper code?



Shortround6 said:


> This is also pre-satellite communication (except for a few experiments) and so even at high altitude you would need airborne radio relay aircraft or low frequency radios to follow the earth's curvature, and you are going to have to contend with some pretty powerful jamming signals being thrown out on a variety of frequencies just on general principals.


So even if a recall command was made, nobody would pick it up...



Graeme said:


> Flight or the December '58 edition of Aviation Week? Browsing the net there's a different scenario out there - the US DoD fed the magazine bullshit, because well, they didn't like them...
> 
> 
> > But then there were a lot of unsubstantiated claims and flag-waving in the magazines from that era of the Cold War...
> ...


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## tyrodtom (Mar 15, 2018)

When it comes to espionage you're never sure what your enemy can and cannot do.
I was a teenager, and young adult, during the late 50s and 60s, but a civilian and then low ranking enlisted man.
People that I was around seem to think the Soviets were supermen when it come to getting to our innermost secrets.
If we were right or wrong no one's ever likely going to know.
What the actual crews flying these SAC bombers thought on this subject , at that time ?

I wish someone with more specific knowledge on this phase of SAC's procedures ( recall of SAC bombers AFTER they'd received a nuclear mission order) would comment.
Was it possible ?


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## Zipper730 (Mar 15, 2018)

tyrodtom said:


> When it comes to espionage you're never sure what your enemy can and cannot do.


The problem is that eventually it reaches complete paranoia where you become completely unable to assess a threat and end up reacting when you shouldn't, doing nothing when you should, over-reacting, under-reacting and so on.


> People that I was around seem to think the Soviets were supermen when it come to getting to our innermost secrets.


They were highly effective...


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## Graeme (Mar 16, 2018)

Zipper730 said:


> So it could have been both a plan to discredit them, and also a way to justify a political goal?



Probably, and I guess the military would become tired of the public trying to uncover "secrets"...


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## Zipper730 (Jul 2, 2018)

Graeme said:


> Probably, and I guess the military would become tired of the public trying to uncover "secrets"


However, the nuclear powered bomber likely would not have survived had it not been for that article.


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## Zipper730 (Jul 15, 2018)

If anybody's got any answers on the above, I'd love to hear it but, otherwise, to get back onto topic.

I'd say the A3J/A-5 was an interesting flop in the role it was designed for because of the following

It might very well have been able to meet all of it's speed requirements
It was able to get on and off a carrier deck (however hard that was)
It had advanced features
That being said the major problems it had seemed to be the bomb-train: While the design was otherwise quite impressive, the bomb-train seemed to be a train-wreck. From what I remember

It didn't necessarily clear the aircraft which would be a major problem
It allegedly came out once on the ground, and assuming that wasn't the only time, I could imagine that even if it didn't kill anybody, it'd make your heart skip a beat!
The after body was grossly altered after the bomb-train was released and I'm not sure how that would effect drag
My guess is that the bomb-train was to eliminate the need for a post-target turn and possibly to improve ballistics.


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