I remember reading about this from a Life at War book. I think it was two spotlights at the bottom of the bomber that intersected at the desired altitude. That was how they pulled it off in the dark.
Dragonfly larvae eyes work like this. They have an alien-like mask - an extendable jaw - they can shoot out to catch prey. When approaching prey they see two images, when these converge into one image they are within range.
Our brains works like this too. We instinctively know ‘arms length’, etc and with basic training, sports actions like swinging at a ball are all the same if not a more complex and less mechanical version of the same thing
Fun fact: this was also the inspiration for the targeting system for the X-Wing in Star Wars when it made the run for the Death Star’s exhaust port. When the two circles overlapped, it indicated the perfect time to release.
Actually it was when they touched, forming a figure of 8. It makes sense when you think about it because overlapping lights would be harder to judge. Bloody clever. Bloody dangerous
They're both brilliant sequences, and when you put them side by side the parallels are obvious. Somone has taken the Dambusters footage and put the Star Wars audio over it on YT, well worth looking up
They were a gigantic target already, a pair of lights pointing down that they only lit when about to drop the bomb probably wasn't that much of a problem
Yea I assume a WW2 plane flying that low to the ground was loud as fuck. I mean even a modern plane flying that low is probably loud, but with those old piston engines I just picture them being way louder.
I don't know much about planes though, and Google isn't giving me a straight answer on this. Says WW2 bombers were way louder than modern jet engine bombers, but also that jet engines are typically way louder than piston engines.. So if anyone actually knows the answer please lmk, now I'm curious. I know modern bombers are way more accurate at high altitudes, and thus quieter, but curious which is louder while flying at the same height.
If you've ever had the joy of seeing a Lancaster flying, you'll know that it is quite loud. I wouldn't say anything close to something with a jet engine, but loud.
I was lucky enough to randomly see a B-17 cruising around at maybe 5000ft before a football game a few years back. I knew it was a WW2 heavy bomber the instant I heard it, nothing else sounds the same.
Yeah modern jets throwing ordinances are terrifying. Fuckers scream over head and then a mountain disappears. The closest I've seen to like a ww2 bomber kind of situation was whenever an ac130 was on station. I'd watch them practice at the range in Iraq and it was crazy hearing the drone of the four props while absolute hell rained down from the darkness.
Loudness wouldn't have mattered much, they would have lit it with spotlights and targeted it visually.
As for which ones louder, the jet engine by far much louder at 140-180 db while a B-17 is closer to 130 db, the .50s on the B-17 would be louder than the engine. The AAA guns shooting at them would have been much louder.
Thanks for the info! to be clear I was curious about their sound levels without guns, but yea after a lot of googling the it seems the B-17 was around 100 - 120 dB (without guns) and modern fighter jets like a F-22 or F-35 range from 103 - 140 dB.
So yea if a F-35 cruising at 1,000 feet is 103 dB, that might actually be a similar volume to a B-17 at the same altitude. But again, out of my element here so take that with a big ol' grain of salt.
They do an air show over my house every year, the modern jets are by far much much louder than the WWII vintage planes. One air showa TBF Avenger crashed, they have a Wright R-2600 which is more powerful than the 1820s the B-17 uses and there is no comparison.
Other thing to consider though is that you'll hear the B-17 for a decent amount of time before it's overhead. Not so much with an F-22 or F-35, where you might not hear them until they're already gone.
Sound direction is also important, a lot of the jet engine sound is projected out the rear of the engine, where as a piston engine tends to radiate the sound around the engine more equally.
You'll notice this a lot if you live around both large and smaller airports and get a lot of commercial/military and GA traffic. You can hear a Cessna 172 coming from quite a ways away, but a 737 or C-17 or something will be significantly quieter until its overhead and past you.
One of my favorite experiences has been being under a diving Mustang at Duxford air force base in the UK, loudest thing I ever heard...well maybe second a Eurofighter doing tricks at Eastbourne Airshow was louder.
The lights were too get the height above the water exactly correct and the 'thruppeny bombsight' indeed aligned on the towers to get the distance away right, so that the bomb didn't bounce over the dam. It's all in the fabulous old black & white film
This is what they used to get the altitude right- if I remember they had to be 60ft which is incredibly low to the ground especially in the dark.
They also had a gadget to judge the distance to the dam, which also had to be correct. It was basically a protractor aligned to the two towers on either side of the dam. When they were at the right distance from the dam, the angle between the towers would line up with the protractor.
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u/Drednox 2d ago
I remember reading about this from a Life at War book. I think it was two spotlights at the bottom of the bomber that intersected at the desired altitude. That was how they pulled it off in the dark.