World War II - Bouncing Bombs of Dam Buster Fame

Replies

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  silverscorpion

  Wow!! What an ingenious feat!!
  
  Very interesting, indeed.. I wonder what kind of calculations this might have entailed..
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  Ramani Aswath

  silverscorpion

  Wow!! What an ingenious feat!! Very interesting, indeed.. I wonder what kind of calculations this might have entailed..

  I Was a small boy when the actual bombing took place. We heard about this. Later the book by one of the pilots came followed by the movie in 1955-56. I bought the book and saw the film also. Here is a bit of the film:
  [video=youtube;lCRIsjJFRNo]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lCRIsjJFRNo[/video]
  
  I can describe one interesting calculation in this. The planes had to be exactly 60 feet above the reservoir water surface for the bouncing to take place. There were no instruments of the required precision to guide the pilot. An ingenious contraption that projected two circular patches of light was designed to fit under the fuselage. When the images on the water showed a figure 8 (the two patches just touching) the height was 60 feet. You can see this in the clip above.
  
  More clips on this are on the same link given above.
  
  More info is available here:
  The Dambusters | Welcome to the Dambusters Website
  
  Bioramani