Bombing with fighters

[Raptor05121]

I'm a newb at this but I love flying those town busting missions with the 110's or P-47's. However, the only time I hit anything is when I have the rockets. I can never seem to drop the bombs on the hangars without the bombsight like the Lancs and Fortresses. Every time I'd come back around I'd either be too long or too short. What are some good pointers for boming ground targets with a Jug or such?

[Rolex]

I'd suggest that you log into the Training Arena and go to Field A1 (Bishop).  There are targets just off the airfield you can use for practice. When you select bombs, you'll see a green + in your cockpit. The flatter your angle, the lower the + will appear in the cockpit. That is a bombsight indicator available in the Training Arena for practice. You'll understand the relationship between your speed/angle and aim after using it a few times/

Remember that bombs require 1,000 feet of total travel to arm correctly, or they will not explode.

It is usually easier to hit your target by dropping in at a steep angle... 60-80 degrees. Be sure you're not applying rudder input. Use roll to orient yourself correctly. Don't worry. you'll get better after some practice. Good luck!

[BnZ]

In most fighters your main problem in the divebombing run is not overspeeding and augering.. Get over the target at about 10K, chop throttle, point the nose at the target. In a P-47 or P-51, you can use one or two notches of flaps to help keep you slow. In P-47D-40 and P-38L, you have dive-brakes, which is ideal. In the Corsair series, you can drop the gear at high speed as a dive brake.

Basically, I get in a nearly vertical dive, I generally put the target somewhere between the bottom of my gun-sight and the nose of the aircraft, and I drop the bomb as soon as I have a stable solution. Like the other guys said, don't screw up and wait too long to drop, or the bomb won't arm.

BTW, you can turn on a computing sight for dive-bombing in offline and TA.

[PFactorDave]

P-38L, you have dive-brakes, which is ideal.

Nope.

The P-38 does not have dive brakes.

It has a set of flaps, whose sole purpose is to disrupt the airflow over the wing surface and create an airflow that allows the elevator to have authority at an high dive speed.

[trotter]

I never understood why anyone would take the 45 degree approach to bombing when they can take the 80-90 degree approach. Coming from straight vertical, anywhere from an initial point of 6-10k, all you have to do is point your nose at the target and drop at around 2k. Or, the lowest possible altitude you can still pull up successfully from.

[uptown]

This is the sight i use and very rarely miss. The bowtie under the dot is for rockets and the bottom bowtie is for the bombs. If you're coming in at a shallow angle...45 degrees, I use the bottom for rockets.
If your target is a hanger, set your salvo to 6. Dive in from at least 10K with throttle off and at a 70 or 80 degree angle. once the upper most bowtie is on target release all 6 rockets and quickly switch to bombs and drop when bottom mark is on target. Hanger will be destroyed.
If you're ever on the rook side look me up. I've done this a 1000 times and will show you how. it's really easy once you know how. 

should also say these are 1000lb eggs....2 bombs & 6 rockets

[A8TOOL]

Short but Excellent film to view on using jabo fighters to take down ack, dar and VH's.

Make sure you check Recorded views to see what pilot see's

You can also use external view, slow film down and position falling bombs on screen in Slow-mo

Pay attn. to rockets

See how to drop from downward vertical and level at 500 feet

1.33 meg I think, Short but good.


http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?chmnfko0znl
Jabo.ahf

[Max]

Here's a question in response to the "steep angle of attack" dive bombing technique...I've watched Jabo come into a base, or CV, at low altitude and lob the bombs into target. Presumably that requires a forward movement of at least 1000 ' to set the detonator. What's the trick to lobbing?

[The Fugitive]

I never understood why anyone would take the 45 degree approach to bombing when they can take the 80-90 degree approach. Coming from straight vertical, anywhere from an initial point of 6-10k, all you have to do is point your nose at the target and drop at around 2k. Or, the lowest possible altitude you can still pull up successfully from.

I drop from the 45 degree angle most of the time. When making a run this way for rockets the target is placed half way between the pipper (center of the target) to the top of the engine cowl. From bombs the target is just off the top of the engine cowl. The steeper the dive, the closer to the piper your target must be, and of course the flatter the dive the closer, or under the engine cowl it should be.

The reason I use a 45 degree approach is I plan on fighting after I drop. More often than not, people who dive strait down at 80-90 degrees end up augering into the target before the bombs get there.    If they don't, they burn a ton of "E" trying to pull out of their dive and climb back up. With the 45 degree approach, you have extra time to line up the target (your not over speeding, and its a longer approach), and after you drop, the climb out can be much smoother and you can use your zoom to climb right back to the alt you had before you started your dive.

[A8TOOL]

You can drop from any of these angles. It just takes proper throttle adjustments and using your best educated guess to determine the bombs path through the air.

Visualize the bomb going through the air before you drop. Your angle of attack and speed will determine it's arc or path. The faster you are going the longer and straighter the bomb will travel. On the other end, Gravity takes hold of the bomb much quicker at slower speeds and pulls it down. It has weight and mass just like a ball thrown in your back yard.... Visualize from there. Use an over hand throw for 90 - 30 degrees and underhand for 29- 0

 Dropping from 90 degrees there is really no arc but you risk auguring if not done right. At 0 to 10 degrees the arc is greater depending on speed. It's much easier figure what the bombs arc will be between 35 and 45 degrees. Use the cowl to judge when to drop as Fugitive has said.

[A8TOOL]

I played the film I made this morning and it got stuck at the point where film two was appended (attached) to film one.

I received an error mesg. and Ah film stop responding. I fixed it by running the film in fast forward past the first film and then replaying it.

DID anyone else experience this?

If So, I will re-splice the 3 films into each other a different way.


When watching the third film or level bombing from 5-600 feet you can use external view and position yourself on the side of the plane to see the bombs path taken in slo-mo.
That should give you a better idea of how it travels through the air to target.

[uptown]

Here's a question in response to the "steep angle of attack" dive bombing technique...I've watched Jabo come into a base, or CV, at low altitude and lob the bombs into target. Presumably that requires a forward movement of at least 1000 ' to set the detonator. What's the trick to lobbing?

I pull up hard, but half the time i miss

[Rich46yo]

When I first started divebombing I thought I was missing cause I couldn't get hangars down a lot of times with 2 1,000 lb bombs. I went like 2 months before finding out it takes more then 2,000 lbs to drop a hangar and that I wasn't bombing bad at all.

Now I prefer to bomb almost vertical. As I approach the target I invert "flying upside down" lining up, and scoping, the available targets using forward views with zoom. I line the middle of the windshield up with the target and approach. As I'm hovering almost over the target I'm reducing speed and lining the target up with the up view until I'm almost directly overhead. Then I kill throttle and dive, often releasing bombs and rockets at the same time, "got my stick mapped to do so".

The upside to this is you dont often miss. The downside is you lose a bit of situational awareness. I would never recommend anyone learn only one method. Learning the two, vertical and 45%, is important cause your going to have to use both.

And now we have those great new targets in the TA to practice on. Good luck.

[BoilerDown]

Nope.

The P-38 does not have dive brakes.

It has a set of flaps, whose sole purpose is to disrupt the airflow over the wing surface and create an airflow that allows the elevator to have authority at an high dive speed.

True.  But jabo pilots in P-38s should use them just like they were dive brakes, because they'll (probably) find that they can't pull out at the end of their dive if they don't.  The lack of the flaps in the -J is why I never fly that model for dive bombing.

Truth is, for dive bombing most of the other american rides that can take a large bombload are better suited to that task than the P-38.  But maybe they aren't a better fighter after the bombs are gone....

[BnZ]

True.  But jabo pilots in P-38s should use them just like they were dive brakes, because they'll (probably) find that they can't pull out at the end of their dive if they don't.  The lack of the flaps in the -J is why I never fly that model for dive bombing.

Truth is, for dive bombing most of the other american rides that can take a large bombload are better suited to that task than the P-38.  But maybe they aren't a better fighter after the bombs are gone....

I think a P-38 with a full load of ord will climb faster just about any non-perk fighter that carries a similar load of ordinance.