Bombsight

This article does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (December 2007)

An early bombsight.

A bombsight is a device used by bomber aircraft to accurately drop bombs. Early bombsights were nothing more than crosshairs, in the last decades, however, they correct factors affecting the ballistic trajectory of the dropped ordnance. These include the altitude, airspeed, and heading of the aircraft, the wind, and the aerodynamic properties of the specific bomb.

The first useful bombsight was the Drift Sight Mk 1A, introduced on the Handley Page O/400 heavy bomber of World War I. It was an improvement in sighting equipment, as it accounted for aircraft altitude and speed, wind velocity, and drift.^[1]

The Norden bombsight, used by the United States Army Air Force in World War II, brought all of these factors together and was a technical achievement enabling high-precision, high-altitude bombing under certain conditions. The Norden was considered one of the Allies' greatest technical secrets. The Stabilizing Automatic Bomb Sight was used by the Royal Air Force.

In the 1950s, mechanical computing devices were replaced with electronic ones, and became integrated into weapons systems. They may be controlled by the pilot directly and provide information through the heads-up display or a video display on the instrument panel. The definition of bombsight is becoming blurred as "smart" bombs with in-flight guidance, such as laser-guided bombs or those using GPS replace "dumb" gravity bombs.

See also

• Norden bombsight (USAAF)
• Stabilizing Automatic Bomb Sight (RAF)
• Mark XIV bomb sight (RAF) less accurate, for Area bombing
• Lotfernrohr 7 (Luftwaffe)

References

This article related to weaponry is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. v • d • e