Direct Bombing

[MBot]

I assume all the ground pounders are knee deep into Dive Toss. And indeed this seems to be the go-to mode most of the time. But I would like to make a case for the Direct delivery when doing a low-level pop-up attack, where everything happens rather quick and you might not have the time to fiddle with Jester doing the ground lock.

I just played around with bombing for one Sunday afternoon yet, but coming from my profile for the Mirage F1 I figured out the following parameters which work fairly well:

(a) Initiate pop-up maneuver 4.5 NM from target
(b) Turn 30° offset left or right
(c) Pitch up to 30° climb
(d) Climb 3'000 ft over target MSL then initiate pull-down
(e) Release parameters:
-15° dive
-540 KTAS / Mach 0.8
-1'500 ft above target
-Piper depression 55 mils for Mk-82

A release interval of 150 ms gives a bomb spacing of about 20 meters. Remember that with this profile, pipper shows the first bomb of the stick. Here is me dropping a single Mk-82 for demonstration purpose. Operationally you want to drop a stick of bombs to increase hit probability.

 

If you are off the release parameters you have to apply error correction. Remember the following shortcuts:

-Too Slow -> Short bomb (release late)

-Too Fast -> Long bomb (release early)

-Too Shallow -> Short bomb (release late)

-Too Steep -> Long bomb (release early) (sorry, that starts with s too )

-Too High -> Short bomb (release late)

-Too Low -> Long bomb (release early)

It's good to know these by heart. I always speak them out loud just before the attack. Now how much should you correct? If you are a quick thinker, there are calculations which you could do on the fly. Most probably will just take a good guess based on experience. With the above rules you will at least correct in the right direction. Also remember that all 3 error corrections sum up. So being a little slow and a little steep might just offset each other etc.

[MBot]

This is an easy high angle profile for Direct that keeps you above the lethal AAA zone.

(a) Level ingress at medium altitude
(b) Roll in when target is at outer lower edge of canopy rail
(c) Release parameters:
-30° dive
-530 KTAS / Mach 0.8 (throttle idle)
-5'000 ft above target
-Piper depression 107 mils for Mk-82

[sirrah]

On 5/26/2024 at 6:34 PM, MBot said:

 

 

Holy cow!

My DTOS'ing is not even that accurate