Dummy bomb falls from jet

[murdocjxx]

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/us/2008/1...bomb.truck.kvbc

Bombs away...

[Guest TacAirDrvr]

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/us/2008/1...bomb.truck.kvbc

Bombs away...

Thats AWESoME!!! Any fighter dudes care to speculate!!! Do you think it could happen with a 500lber??

BGen Handy.......That guy ROCKS!!!! He was at Elmo for aspell as the OG, and was cool to us red headed step children on the other side of the base!! For all the B*tchin about idiots that get promoted, this guy is not one of those and one of the few who decided to stay in and set stuff straight!

[D-ron]

Thats AWESoME!!! Any fighter dudes care to speculate!!! Do you think it could happen with a 500lber??

BGen Handy.......That guy ROCKS!!!! He was at Elmo for aspell as the OG, and was cool to us red headed step children on the other side of the base!! For all the B*tchin about idiots that get promoted, this guy is not one of those and one of the few who decided to stay in and set stuff straight!

Man! Talk about a one in a million shot. I'm not a fighter dude, but I doubt live ordnance would have bounced.

[Toro]

Thats AWESoME!!! Any fighter dudes care to speculate!!!

I can't see the video, and I don't know what type of aircraft it was but there's any number of reasons it could happen-

1) Aircrew switch error - they might have mastered arm when they shouldn't have or intended to be dropping in a training mode when they were actually in combat mode (F-15Es aren't allowed to do this over populated areas). This happened about six years ago in England and the crew dropped a BDU-33 on a factory. Unfortunately, this is usually the culprit.

2) Designation error - they may screwed up their target designation and dropped the bomb short of where it was intended. If the crew was out of Nellis, I would hope this wasn't the mistake as it's more of a rookie (B-course) error to designate that far off target.

3) System error - the ranging source in the jet could have ‘hiccuped’. I’ve seen this happen before where the system is doing a continuous ranging update to the target, then for no apparent reason it jumps well long or short (miles) of the target. In the Strike Eagle this usually happens in the last 15 seconds prior to dropping and if you’re not paying attention, you can miss it.

Do you think it could happen with a 500lber??

Anything’s possible – but I would certainly hope not. Complacency is a possibility with BDU-33s, but we normally don’t fly with heavyweights and tend to put more emphasis on PACS (weapons) procedures.

[Guest TacAirDrvr]

I can't see the video, and I don't know what type of aircraft it was but there's any number of reasons it could happen-

1) Aircrew switch error - they might have mastered arm when they shouldn't have or intended to be dropping in a training mode when they were actually in combat mode (F-15Es aren't allowed to do this over populated areas). This happened about six years ago in England and the crew dropped a BDU-33 on a factory. Unfortunately, this is usually the culprit.

2) Designation error - they may screwed up their target designation and dropped the bomb short of where it was intended. If the crew was out of Nellis, I would hope this wasn't the mistake as it's more of a rookie (B-course) error to designate that far off target.

3) System error - the ranging source in the jet could have ‘hiccuped’. I’ve seen this happen before where the system is doing a continuous ranging update to the target, then for no apparent reason it jumps well long or short (miles) of the target. In the Strike Eagle this usually happens in the last 15 seconds prior to dropping and if you’re not paying attention, you can miss it.

Anything’s possible – but I would certainly hope not. Complacency is a possibility with BDU-33s, but we normally don’t fly with heavyweights and tend to put more emphasis on PACS (weapons) procedures.

Looks like they were on a stereo route to the south at Nellis, the plane was at 1700 feet, If I remember right you have to be between 5K and 6K before the higherway, the BDU bounced inside the fence and then over!!

[Smokin]

It also could have been a "hung" (STS) bomb. He may have tried to drop it on the range and it just partly released. A partly released bomb could work itself free during the flight home. If that happens, you are supposed to not overfly populated areas, but maybe he had no choice here.

[163 FS]

I can only speak from a Hog perspective, but if this was a Hog, here’s my guess: Loft Rocket delivery but with a BDU station accidently selected.

We will pop from low altitude to loft rockets onto the target to mark, suppress, etc. If you just came off a bombs pass, particularly with TER mounted BDU’s, it’s easy to switch to rockets in the HUD but forget to deselect the bomb station. So you pop up (typically 10-20 degrees), and let ‘em fly….except BDU’s don’t fly, they fall. Can you say….”Whoops!” I’m no physics major, but if this were the case it would come off with a lot of forward momentum - might explain why the bomb skipped. I’ve seen B-coursers do this out of a normal diving delivery on their first rocket ride – one guy in my class hammered down 6 times thinking there was something wrong with the pickle button. You guessed it, 6 BDU impacts in a straight line about 2NM short of the target.

We’ve also seen this in reverse at medium altitude - a guy is trying to drop a bomb out of a CCRP level (we VERY rarely drop levels) and accidently has rockets called up in the HUD. The symbology is the exact same as bombs except for a small “Rkt1 52” in the left corner of the HUD. So he lines up the green shit and pickles…… but again, the bomb (lacking a rocket motor) can land up to 5NM short of the target.

This is my best guess unless it was system error. Maybe a late cart mid or post safe escape??

Or maybe the driver of the truck slept with the pilots wife and he actually meant to hit the truck. Shack??!

It was probably a hung BDU (or some other malfunction) that eventually made its way off the TER or whatever the other dudes carry. I can't see the dude trying to ripple a pod of rockets (or doing any WD for that matter) in the immediate vacinity of Nellis. The BDU actually landed on Nellis then skipped over the wall and hit some poor degenerate on the other side.

Or it could have been TER kick...