ID Bell glide bomb.

[klem]

I'm looking for more information about this Bell glide bomb.thanks

 

[Orionblamblam]

It's clearly in the "Tallboy/Grand Slam" family. The squared-off tailfins seem to be those of the T-12 "Cloudmaker," 43,000 pound bomb. The T-12, however, had four tailfins not three.

 

[Grey Havoc]

Presumably an emergency program for the Korean War, more than likely for the USAF.

 

[Dilandu]

Interesting. Why inverted wings? To allow for supersonic glide?

 

[TomcatViP]

Probably to deal with the forward projected CG.

 

[klem]

Thanks for the effort,the pictures was on an auction site without any other information.

 

[Orionblamblam]

Interesting. Why inverted wings? To allow for supersonic glide?

The forward half of the bomb is a giant iron casting filled with kerplosive. You wouldn't want spars running through that, I suppose, especially if you're trying to *not* modify existing hardware, or if you don't want to mess with the armor-piercing forward penetrator. With these forward swept wings, the spars are far enough aft that they fit through the non-kerplodey rear shell of the bomb, and are apparently part of a new structure.

 

[kitnut617]

I agree, I was going to say that a spar would have incorporated the large bolt ring on the rear end of the casting

 

[Justo Miranda]

Hi

 

[klem]

Hi

May be one model of Tallboy/Grand Slam" family .but wath as bomb,the built year and the spcefications and so on.For the moment mystery we have just the name Bell.

 

[Trident]

It's clearly in the "Tallboy/Grand Slam" family. The squared-off tailfins seem to be those of the T-12 "Cloudmaker," 43,000 pound bomb. The T-12, however, had four tailfins not three.

The tail fins on these bombs were also set at an incidence to impart stabilizing spin (visible in Justo's drawings), which would be undesirable for a winged weapon. So a new fin configuration was inevitable.