Why did the US standardise on the more expensive, heavier twin shackle suspension, with possibility of a bomb not releasing from one of the shackles?
I wonder if it is because a member of the US Army, Harry D Weed at McCook Field, Dayton, patented a most advanced system of storing bombs stacked internally horizontally, without crutches, which needed two suspension points for stability. US1396150 & US1385598, first registered in 1919. Very advanced, it eliminated having to carefully tighten stabilisers or crutches around a bomb, with always the possibility, with early releases, of overtightening causing a hang-up.It became a standard system in WW2.
Vertical storage in early machines, rather than below wings, was also ruled out for dive bombing, due to worries that the bomb would not have time to perform its "Danse Macabre" in becoming vertical before impact.
Recently I saw Russian planes taking off in Syria, I think, with bombs swaying around, as they had not had crutches tightened. Whether, apart from accuracy, this would have caused damage, I do not know.
I wonder if it is because a member of the US Army, Harry D Weed at McCook Field, Dayton, patented a most advanced system of storing bombs stacked internally horizontally, without crutches, which needed two suspension points for stability. US1396150 & US1385598, first registered in 1919. Very advanced, it eliminated having to carefully tighten stabilisers or crutches around a bomb, with always the possibility, with early releases, of overtightening causing a hang-up.It became a standard system in WW2.
Vertical storage in early machines, rather than below wings, was also ruled out for dive bombing, due to worries that the bomb would not have time to perform its "Danse Macabre" in becoming vertical before impact.
Recently I saw Russian planes taking off in Syria, I think, with bombs swaying around, as they had not had crutches tightened. Whether, apart from accuracy, this would have caused damage, I do not know.