Dive Bombing

[Rider]

OK this is the other thread I mentioned.  I really suck at dive bombing.  I don't do it much but sometimes I'm asked to clear a field of GVs.  I've been successfull about a dozen or so times out of countless attempts.  Here is what I do:  I dive in at about a 45 degree angle, when I approach the gv I pull out of the dive and drop after the gv dissappears under my nose.  Sometimes I'm successfull but most of the times I'm short or long.  What's the secret?  How close do the eggs have to be to do damage?

I usually fly the Ki-84 which carries 2 X 250kg.

Thanks in advance,

Rider

[The Fugitive]

It all has to do with practice. At 45 degrees I would drop as the target is settled on the bottom edge of the site/just above the nose cowling. The steeper the angle, the closer to the pipper the target has to be. If your coming in at 45, and dropping as you pull up your dropping long. Line up, drop, THEN pull out.

[Rider]

Excellent, I'll give it a shot.

Rider

[Rider]

How about the verticle drop?  I would think this would be the easiest but it seems to be just as difficult or even somewhat harder for me.  What's the secret for a verticle drop on something such as a fighter hanger?

Rider

[ImADot]

I'm not the greatest dive-bomber either, but here's what I try to do...

Fly level until you're nearly on top of the hanger, pull straight up and cut throttle.  Keep going until you stall out and flip nose-down at nearly 0 airspeed.  Once you get back a little speed and control, fine-tune your aim and steady up your dive.  When you feel you've got it ready, drop bombs and pull out before compressing or augering, give it full throttle and get outta there.

[pritchy]

Best thing I did was go in to the training arena where the bomb impact point is displayed on screen.  Try out a few dives and you get a real feel for the speed : angle relationship.

You can dive in at 45 deg.   The more speed you have the closer the target should be to the centre of your gunsight.

Imagine you are throwing the bomb.  The harder you throw it the less opportunity it has to drop away from your direction of flight.

 

[trotter]

I'm pretty awful at divebombing so I always use a 90 degree approach. In a 90 degree dive, your bombs will land right about where you are pointing. Simple enough for me, the problem sometimes is getting enough altitude, and also sometimes your angle may be a few degrees less than 90. But if you have doubts about your accuracy with a 45 degree approach, and you have the altitude, try the 90 degree approach.

[lulu]

90 degrees approach work well   

 

ps

if u want to dive vertically, then ur nose must not be vertically too much.
on the contrary u will suffer a 'lift' force parallel to the ground.

[texastc316]

I use the top of the cowl or just above for dive bombing, for rockets just below pipper. Pretty fair succes

[mtnman]

The secret to hitting anything reliably is consistancy.  If you vary your approach angle, altitude, and/or your speed, you'll also see variance in impact points.  It takes a bit more effort to pay attention to the small details, but it also leads to more consistant results (success).

I'd recommend reading the Dive Bombing tutorial at the AH Trainers site for starters.  http://trainers.hitechcreations.com/  It's a great place to begin.

With a little practice you'll be hitting ground targets with ease.  I use to love D-Bombing in an F4U.  Line up on the target, and fire all my rockets (.salvo 8), quickly switch to bombs, drop them, and pull out.  FH gone in one pass, every time...

For a small target (GV's) I would try a steeper dive, and don't forget to lead them if they're moving.

[Enker]

If I am dive bombing, I go into what seems to be a vertical dive, and drop when my target is in the pipper. I miss, but I end up hitting something anyway.

Dimebag can attest to this.

[Black Jack]

Rider, whichever plane you use when u want to dive bomb, go practice in the TA with the Lead computer using bombs. You can get a mental picture of where ur suppose to drop after u practice the same type of dive be it 45 or steeper. This way you can become very accurate pretty fast. Like people mentionned earlier, you need to be consistent on the way to dive so you can actually "aim" dropping your bomb. With time, you will be diving on the target and know that ur a little more shallow than what you are used too so you will drop a little bit longer and still drop that bomb right on top of your target. 

[BaldEagl]

Dive bombing at 90 degrees (i.e. striaght down) is a horrible way to bomb and a bad habit to get into.  The two biggest drawbacks to this are the inability to pull out before augering and the difficulty in properly aiming your drop.  Because you will never get your plane at a perfect 90 degrees you'll tend to roll the plane to maintain orientation on your target and as you do so you'll spin the bombs off course.  It's also nearly impossible to use this for bombing GV's as you need so much starting altitude you can't even see the GV's.

I'd recommend getting used to a 40-60 degree dive angle.  Where the drop point is will depend on angle, speed, drop alt and the plane you are using.  Much like learning to hit targets in a GV this is something that takes practice but once you get it down you will hit every time.

Simplified, dive, aim your pipper at your target, drop before target range reaches 800 yards (the bomb needs to travel 1000 yards vertically and horizontally to arm) then pull out.  The more speed you have the more accurate you'll be (you can adjust for speed and angle by placing the pipper above the target if you need to).