Bad Bombs

[Dan Wilson]

Okay guys, what are the most spectacular bad bombs (airdrops from hell) you have either had a hand in or personally know of. I put it in OT because there are folks here that have dropped stuff in planes other than the Herk.

I think the most spectacular one I personally know of was at Rhine Main in 1989. I think (ugh) Duke Bender was the AC, it was a triple heavy LAPES at Giebelstadt.

For those not conversant with LAPES, a triple heavy is three pallets tied together and the Herk poops them out all at the same time, all the while the pilot is trying to maintain aircraft control with the wheels three or four feet off the ground. Weights of the triple heavy (training loads) are usually between 30-35K.

Well they did their run in to the EZ and what do you know, the load hangs, partially extracted – ouch (can you say CG sucks big time)

They initiate their EP’s and start climbing out, as soon as they cleared the airfield boundary it became “Load Clearâ€:eek:

Thirty some odd thousand pounds of concrete right into a "George Von Opel" car dealership, strangely enough, it never touched a car, slid right down the row between all these new cars.

You can bet it cost the gubbermint a pile of cash to get those chunks of concrete back. Things were a bit strained at the squadron for quite a while after that.

Dan

[BobWoods]

During the seige of Khe Sanh we dropped a 24 foot platform of concertina wire, it broke apart after load clear and the guy on the ground thanked us for distrubuting the stuff, luckily no one was hurt, was what we heard. We laped a few loads too, one load seperated from the chute and slid through a couple buildings, might have been the mess hall, but again no one was hurt plus at that time they weren't eating in the mess hall. In the hell the Marines were living it gave them a few good laughs. We also did a bunch of CDS and most hit the DZ.

[NATOPS1]

I was a 3rd MAW team member at the Marine Corps Matches (Marksmanship Meet) in 1984 and at the 600 yd line sending rounds down range noticed a Herc slow and "DROP" a Humvee from oh I'd say 2000' NICE streamers instead of chutes and watched it disapear into a HUGE dust BOMB!!! Range was kinda quite for just a second then back to popin some caps!

[Fräulein]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BLU-82

God Bless America.

I only post in this thread because I personally know someone who is currently "upgrading death from above" for our enemies.

[KF4DVG]

Watched this one launched from a T1 (I believe)..... You could actually feel the boom pressure on your chest when it lit off...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MOAB

[Dan Wilson]

By "bad bomb" I was using that term in the typical airlift speech, it means an airdrop gone bad:rolleyes:

Dan

[Plaprad]

Got to watch a 10k pet rock forget to open it's chute at Dyess. It came out about 1000 fett, and went straight down. We stopped our postflight to watch. The LZ was about a mile and a half away, and we heard it hit. The Pro Sup didn't see it, so he stopped by to ask why everyone was laughing so hard.

[Jake]

Got to watch a 10k pet rock forget to open it's chute at Dyess. It came out about 1000 fett, and went straight down. We stopped our postflight to watch. The LZ was about a mile and a half away, and we heard it hit. The Pro Sup didn't see it, so he stopped by to ask why everyone was laughing so hard.

Was that in the early 90's? I remember the loadmasters and the JAI being downgraded for missing the chute attachement rigging. It managed to put a hole in the assault zone which made the engineers happy. but the happiness ended when they reopened the assualt strip less than 24 hours later

[Fräulein]

By "bad bomb" I was using that term in the typical airlift speech, it means an airdrop gone bad:rolleyes:

Dan

Apologies. I was kind of puzzled, because imo - there is no such thing as a bad bomb. >_<

Well, maybe bad if you are the guy hiding in a spiderhole and a bunker buster is about to turn your acre of dirt into a walmart parking lot.

[Plaprad]

Was that in the early 90's? I remember the loadmasters and the JAI being downgraded for missing the chute attachement rigging. It managed to put a hole in the assault zone which made the engineers happy. but the happiness ended when they reopened the assualt strip less than 24 hours later

Nope, I want to say it was summer of '04. They didn't really make a big deal out of it, so I don't think it did that much damage. Though they did try to hush it up. Apparently it was "Embarrassing."

[fltsload]

At Edwards AFB, back around 1996, we dropped the second and third stage of a Minute Man II Missile over at China Lake. Came out of the A/C fine, but when it went in to its stabilizing chute, no nose broke off. Letting the missile free fall from 10,000 feet. It made a big hole in the range.