THUNDERCHIEF AT WAR
PICTURE, IF YOU WILL, a Mach-2-capable, all-weather fighterbomber that flies 1,000 feet above the ground on autopilot, while a Doppler navigation system steers it to a target 300 to 500 nautical miles distant. Then, at 550 knots, it runs in toward the target on radar. At the proper time, using inputs from the integrated air data computer and toss bomb computer (TBC), the ship’s autopilot pulls it into a flawless 4G half-loop, whereupon the TBC tosses a nuclear weapon nine miles and which hits within 700 yards of the designated target.
Once the weapon releases, a silver-coated hood snaps automatically over the canopy to protect the pilot’s eyes and face from the flash of the nuclear blast that’s to follow. The autopilot then rolls the aircraft upright completing an Immelmann, and at 600 to 800 knots (depending on the pilot’s perceived urgency and fuel state) steers it to the selected escape waypoint. Back at home base, the autopilot locks onto the instrument landing system and performs an automatic approach to weather minimums. At that point, the pilot takes over and lands manually.
Now picture this same sophisticated, supersonic “tactical nuclear weapons delivery system” loaded externally with World War II-era bombs, armed with fuses certified to around 200 knots, and which were designed for internal carriage in four-engine World War II B-17s and B-24s. The pilot is to drop these bombs on a small bridge or road amidst the most intensive antiaircraft defenses in recorded aviation history.
To avoid the enemy’s defenses, the mission is flown at very low altitude; then at 550 knots, the aircraft pops up with either six or eight 750-pound bombs to 12,000 feet, midst intense antiaircraft fire interspersed with surface-to-air SA-2 missiles.
