I wonder how a bomb affect bomber plane which dropped it

[Pawelk198604]

When I look at pictures of the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the pictures are terrible, I always wonder if scientists have not wondered whether the force of the atomic explosion could destroy the carrier bomber and how pilots escaped shock-wave.

[Tex_NL]

Altitude and speed. The two bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were not the first ones detonated. By that time they had a reasonably good idea how powerful and destructive they were. If you drop your bomb from high enough and fly fast enough you can clear the blast radius by the time it idetonates.

Edited November 15, 2015 by Tex_NL

[peadar1987]

The biggest bomb ever detonated nearly did destroy the plane that dropped it. Caused it to drop by almost 1000 metres in altitude.

[ZetaX]

The Elona Gay was never in much danger from the bomb, more from being shot down.

The biggest bomb ever detonated nearly did destroy the plane that dropped it. Caused it to drop by almost 1000 metres in altitude.

Which was a bomb more than 1000 times more powerful than those two used in WWII.

[Just Jim]

This is not about the atomic bomb, but I remember seeing not too long ago something about medium bombers during WWII making sure they didn't come in and drop their load too low and caught in their own bomb-blast.... guess it doesn't take a nuke to make bad thing happen if you're not paying close attention.

[StrandedonEarth]

[quote name='Just Jim']This is not about the atomic bomb, but I remember seeing not too long ago something about medium bombers during WWII making sure they didn't come in and drop their load too low and caught in their own bomb-blast.... guess it doesn't take a nuke to make bad thing happen if you're not paying close attention.[/QUOTE]

That reminds me of some wild rides I had after dropping 500-1000lb bombs while too low in CFS3, which often resulted in lithobraking. Even more fun was dropping bombs on the runway during my takeoff roll.

[Vanamonde]

If I recall correctly, the crews in those raids were trained to turn sharply away just after releasing the bomb. The bomb would continue toward the impact point at fairly high speed while the plane was going the other way, to maximize the distance between them.

[QUOTE][COLOR=#252525][FONT=sans-serif]The release at 08:15 (Hiroshima time) went as planned, and the Little Boy took 43 seconds to fall from the aircraft flying at 31,060 feet (9,470 m) to the predetermined detonation height about 1,968 feet (600 m) above the city. [/FONT][/COLOR][I]Enola Gay traveled 11.5 mi (18.5 km) before it felt the shock waves from the blast.[SUP][URL="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enola_Gay#cite_note-17"][14][/URL][/SUP] Although buffeted by the shock, neither [I]Enola Gay nor [I]The Great Artiste was damaged.[SUP][URL="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enola_Gay#cite_note-FOOTNOTEPolmar200433-18"][15][/URL] [/SUP][/I][/I][/I][/QUOTE]
[URL="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enola_Gay"]Wikipedia [/URL]

[NFUN]

I might be mistaken, but I think I remember that some nuclear bombs had ways to be deactivated from the plane in case the bomber wouldn't have time to escape the blast.

[FungusForge]

The bombers that carried out the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings survived if I remember correctly. Something along the lines of dropping the bomb and booking it right the heck out.

With a larger bomb on the other hand, the bomber that tested the Tsar Bomba had a heck of a ride. Despite the Tsar Bomba having a parachute to slow its descent the shockwave still hit the plane and caused it to lose quite a good bit of its altitude. I'm not sure if that aircraft turned after dropping the bomb or just kept on whatever heading it had when it released.

[Wanderfound]

The OP would probably find this interesting: [url]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toss_bombing[/url]

Blast effects are primarily an issue for low-altitude tactical attack aircraft rather than strategic bombers. However, it was briefly an issue for the nuke bombers as well: in the period between the development of effective high-altitude SAMs and the shift to ICBM-based nuclear delivery, the nuke bombers switched from the traditional strategic bombing high and slow approach to an under-the-radar low and fast attack.

This put them in range of their own weaponry, requiring tricks such as the toss bombing described in the link. They also focussed on bailout and SERE training, due to the assumption that by the time they'd completed their missions their home airfields would have already been destroyed.

The major self-inflicted bombing hazard for traditional strategic bombers isn't blast, it's weight. Suddenly removing tons of mass from an aircraft does interesting things to the flight characteristics, leading to substantial stress on the airframe.

[Just Jim]

[quote name='Wanderfound']

The major self-inflicted bombing hazard for traditional strategic bombers isn't blast, it's weight. Suddenly removing tons of mass from an aircraft does interesting things to the flight characteristics, leading to substantial stress on the airframe.[/QUOTE]

Oh yeah.... a B-17 could carry something like 8000-10,000 lbs. of bombs. Imagine flying an 18-20 ton plane, and suddenly it gets 4-5 tons lighter! That has got to be wild ride!

[Kryten]

[quote name='FungusForge']The bombers that carried out the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings survived if I remember correctly. Something along the lines of dropping the bomb and booking it right the heck out.[/QUOTE]
They would have been fine even of they were directly over ground zero. Bear in my mind they were at over 9km altitude.

[Nibb31]

Cold War nuclear bombers were painted in "anti-flash white", which was supposed to protect against the thermal radiation of the strike. Other than that, they were supposed to drop their bombs from high enough, and at a fast enough speed, to be out of the blast area by the time the bomb reached its detonation altitude.

Western bombs were (are) designed to go off above their target, which limited fallout, gave them a "flattening" force and wider radius. Soviet bombs were apparently designed to go off at ground level, which gave the bombers more time to escape.

[kerbiloid]

[quote name='Nibb31']Western bombs were (are) designed to go off above their target, which limited fallout, gave them a "flattening" force and wider radius. Soviet bombs were apparently designed to go off at ground level, which gave the bombers more time to escape.[/QUOTE]
Mid-air blast optimal height does not depend on bomb nationality, it's just a height which allows to the direct wave and reflected from ground wave to meet and merge and sinergically enforce each other.
Air blast = larger area, surface blast = more damage near GZ.

[magnemoe]

[quote name='Nibb31']Cold War nuclear bombers were painted in "anti-flash white", which was supposed to protect against the thermal radiation of the strike. Other than that, they were supposed to drop their bombs from high enough, and at a fast enough speed, to be out of the blast area by the time the bomb reached its detonation altitude.

Western bombs were (are) designed to go off above their target, which limited fallout, gave them a "flattening" force and wider radius. Soviet bombs were apparently designed to go off at ground level, which gave the bombers more time to escape.[/QUOTE]
Ground or surface burst is mostly an question about target, if you want to hit an city or an battlefield you want an air burst for maximum effect, if you want to hit an underground installation like an missile silo you use ground burst.

The old doctrine for bombers was high attitude drop, now an B52 is twice as fast as a B29 and fly higher, you can also increase drag on bomb to increase time to explosion.
Think present nuclear bombs on strategic bombers uses an small rocket for stand off attacks, this let you drop at low attitude and make it harder to intercept.

[COLOR="silver"][SIZE=1]- - - Updated - - -[/SIZE][/COLOR]

As other say you also have this problem then doing low attitude attacks with conversational weapons.
Far more an problem if you get an huge secondary explosion like setting off an ammunition dump.

Later is also an problem if you do staffing run with the gun as here you hit targets in front of you.

One American during the Vietnam war managed to get an air to air kill with bombs, flying low and he get an enemy jet behind him so hi drop the bombs to be able to do dogfighting bombs hit the jungle and throw up a lot of junk who disables the enemy plane.
Air to air kills with bombs are rare, some managed to hit an helicopter taking off with an laser guided bomb during the first golf war.

A Swede has the record as hi managed to shoot himself down with the aircraft gun.
Climbed and shot at a target, then flattened out and went supersonic, now the bullets climbed before going down and they was slowing down so he mananged to intercept them and getting hit hard enough to having to eject, but its still an air to air kill :)

[ZetaX]

[quote name='Kryten']They would have been fine even of they were directly over ground zero. Bear in my mind they were at over 9km altitude.[/QUOTE]

That's maybe 8km above the bomb, which should indeed be enough to survive the initial blast without problems. But I guess that very fast air currents will be created by both the blast and the released heat, so getting away from there is probably a good idea.

[Pawelk198604]

[quote name='Wanderfound']The OP would probably find this interesting: [url]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toss_bombing[/url]

Blast effects are primarily an issue for low-altitude tactical attack aircraft rather than strategic bombers. However, it was briefly an issue for the nuke bombers as well: in the period between the development of effective high-altitude SAMs and the shift to ICBM-based nuclear delivery, the nuke bombers switched from the traditional strategic bombing high and slow approach to an under-the-radar low and fast attack.

This put them in range of their own weaponry, requiring tricks such as the toss bombing described in the link. They also focussed on bailout and SERE training, due to the assumption that by the time they'd completed their missions their home airfields would have already been destroyed.

The major self-inflicted bombing hazard for traditional strategic bombers isn't blast, it's weight. Suddenly removing tons of mass from an aircraft does interesting things to the flight characteristics, leading to substantial stress on the airframe.[/QUOTE]

Thanks