Why bombs are armed on the flight line

[Soundguy]

Ia 1000 round drum (clip). .

OOh!.. watch out about saying clip.. the *MAGAZINE* police will come get you... I made the mistake of saying clip a few days back and was promptly corrected about the magazine..... got to be 100% correct here on this casual discussion forum ya know.. no slang!

soundguy

 

[Podunkadunk]

OOh!.. watch out about saying clip.. the *MAGAZINE* police will come get you... I made the mistake of saying clip a few days back and was promptly corrected about the magazine..... got to be 100% correct here on this casual discussion forum ya know.. no slang!

soundguy

I heard that. And when you post something, whether it be technical in nature or not, you better post up the blueprints, exploded view pictures and order a satellite over to take a picture too. That way, people won't think you're lying!

As a matter of fact, I think Doc Heb and N80 (George) should post up P.D.R. references and pics (scanned in) as back-up to some of the things they say. Doesn't matter that they're doctors, or that I was a stinking aeronautical weapons expert, or hold a b.s. in aeronautics from Embry-Riddle, or that I have over 5k flight hours (that's air time fella's) aboard the P3 Orion, or I posted pics....and had a very informative post....nope. Still people doubted. Still people didn't believe. Boy that really got my dander up. But, I'm over it now! Oh yeah, as to not peeve off the grammar police, I know that half of this paragraph is composed of a run-on sentence.

Podunk

 

[BigD23]

I would like to see the holster for the M61A1 20MM, 6 Barrels with a 1000 round drum (clip). A-7 / A-6's have a gun selector for gun High (6000 rds per min) or gun Low (4000rds per min). The drums was usally loaded in 100 round belts (actually 1 continous belt) separated by empty links. Sometimes loaded with HEI and/or tracers spreadout.

I Never saw an A6 with a M61 mounted inside the skin.

Don

 

[BigD23]

Not quite Honeycutt! A-6's don't have an internally mounted gun, never have.

We loaded the drum to the requirement of the mission. Sometimes there'd be 200-300 even 500 rounds then a "break". This was so we didn't have to reload the gun when the pilot got back from that mission. We could get another mission done with what was in the drum. If we didn't put a break in the drum, the pilot would shoot all the rounds before he even knew he had done it, causing us more work. The gun has a last round switch in the exit port of the drum connecting to the feed chute. Once it tripped because of the "break" in the ammunition, it would shut the gun down. The pilot couldn't make it shoot again, because the overide is outside the aircraft. That's the jist of it...actually a little more technical that that. Tracers were put in at the discretion of what the mission called for. We usually did every 9 or 10 rounds, then a tracer. Still, would look like a continuos beam of light when fired. Hard to imagine there'd be 9-10 rounds between those. Awesome to see.

Podunk

Good info on the tracer rounds Podunk...Let's not forget either to "KEEP YOUR HANDS OUT OF THE PURGE AIR DOOR" after turnup...Never knew when it was gonna SLAM Shut!...If I remember correctly too,first detent on the trigger (if selected gun) was gun camera and the purge air door, second detent was Show Time...You're really bringing back a Lot of memories.....Thank you for Your service as well.

Don

 

[barneyrb]

I had a buddy's son home from some kind of bomb training and I asked him what he learned. His reply was "if you see the bomb sargent run by....try to keep up".

 

[Heywood Jannockitov]

...And when you post something, whether it be technical in nature or not, you better post up the blueprints, exploded view pictures and order a satellite over to take a picture too. That way, people won't think you're lying!

You got your back up for nothing. It is more like this ... people who are very interested in reading about your maritime patrol experiences, but are asking for clarification when they see something that looks odd to them. I didn't read anywhere where I or anyone else called you a liar.

Interesting that you mentioned exploded views. Aircraft can't fly without aircrew. They also can't fly without flight manuals and technical documentation.

That Structural Repair Manual, Service Bulletin or IPC exploded view illustration was created by someone like me who had 50 times more "hours" behind a drafting board.

My interest in what you did was based on my own limited experience working on the CP140 Aurora's GSCC (27 years ago) which, I don't have to tell you, is based on the same airframe, but with the ASW suite found in the S3B.
So, maybe you flew em, but I drew em!

 

[Podunkadunk]

Heywood,
Been on the Canadian version several times, but never got to fly with them. I Did get to do a quick flight with the Brits on the Nimrod back in 1991 or 1992 at an air-show in Lann Bihoue, France.

My apologies again, I had my panties in a wad yesterday.

Podunk

 

[Heywood Jannockitov]

I Did get to do a quick flight with the Brits on the Nimrod back in 1991 or 1992 at an air-show in Lann Bihoue, France.

That would have been very cool. A very "unique" looking bird!
Unfortunately, I was present at the 1995 CNE airshow
in Toronto and saw the Nimrod take a dive into Lake Ontario. Very sad, especially to see the wreath for the aircrew at the empty spot on the static line where the aircraft should have been parked.

 

[gemini5362]

I dont have the experience you guys have in the P-3 ( I rode in one once on a mac flight)
I do however have a lot of experience with the M61-A1 The navy used that in the close in weapons system (CIWS) That system is the last line of defense against missile attack. The M61 is slowed down quite a bit for that system it only fires 3000 rounds a minute. They dont use He on the rounds for CIWS they use depleted uranium penetrators that are designed to penetrate the missile and explode the warhead. The ships the Saudi Arabian Navy bought from the United States had CIWS mounted on them and I worked on them while the ships were doing crew training for two years in Little Creek, Va and when they went back to Saudi Arabia, Preventative Maintenance calls for the gun to be torn apart and cleand and lubricated every quarter so you rebuilt the guns every 3 months and there were 14 ships. I worked on that project for 6 years so I have seen the gun torn down several times. The first time I worked on a M61-A1 I was amazed at how simple the function was. To me it is the most efficient machine I have ever seen in my life. very simple and very basic. In all those years I only saw two gun problems (of course it was not fired that often) One problem was due to an idiot field engineer from the company that built the system. He was rebuilding one of the guns and decided to test it with dummy rounds to make sure the timing was right. He decided he did not need the barrels on just to test that so he left them off since the back of the barrel is the breech on that gun when the rounds get to the front part of their travel without the barrel there is nothing to hold them in place. One of them bounced out and jammed. Really did a nice job of screwing things up. The other problem i saw was when some really intelligent highly trained field engineer forgot to lock the pins in place that hold the fireing contactor in place. (it was me) That was a lesson I never forgot or repeated. I made the mistake so I got to fix it. I wound up having to go out in the arabian gulf when they were having a great time sinking ships. Argue with a ships captain to turn off all of his radars and have him blind ( he really loved that) and then go take things apart with live ammo in it. I did not damage anything but took about an hour to get things unjammed and straightened out. I still have a wood model that the company gives out with the entire system including the gun and ammo drum. Working on that system was one of my favorite jobs I have ever held.

 

[dmccarty]

OOh!.. watch out about saying clip.. the *MAGAZINE* police will come get you... I made the mistake of saying clip a few days back and was promptly corrected about the magazine..... got to be 100% correct here on this casual discussion forum ya know.. no slang!

I would think there is more than one person on TBN who has had to do push ups, sprints or some other form of PE when they uttered the word "clip" instead of the proper word, magazine.

They might be a wee be sensitive to the use of the proper word.

I always used the correct word for said device that holds cartridges and thus escaped the use of PE to help the forgetful remember the proper term.

My dad can tell stories of men who used the term GUN when referring to a rifle. I can repeat the story as well as the ditty the men had to chant while marching around holding their rifle and their gun but this is a family site. Its a wee bit funny.



Later,
Dan