Lake Mead B-29

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PHXPhlyer
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Lake Mead B-29

#1 Post by PHXPhlyer » Wed Aug 03, 2022 5:38 pm

Dive (not Drive) a B-29

https://www.nps.gov/lake/learn/historic ... d-b-29.htm

See link for dive info and more.

A Piece of American History
At 9:51 a.m. July 21, 1948, a B-29 Superfortress, weighing in at 104,556 pounds, took off from China Lake, California. It traveled to a test area near Lake Mead to conduct high-altitude atmospheric research. After the last measurements were taken, the pilot took the plane a little lower. Both the pilot and co-pilot thought they were around 400 feet above the lake’s surface, but the altimeter was reportedly off. Around 12:30 p.m. traveling at 230 miles per hour, the B-29 struck the water and sank to the bottom of Lake Mead where it still lies today.

PP

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Fox3WheresMyBanana
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Re: Lake Mead B-29

#2 Post by Fox3WheresMyBanana » Wed Aug 03, 2022 6:30 pm

Very difficult to judge height over a big lake, in my experience. I recall Nevada summer mornings having little or no wind, generally. I always reset the altimeter just before coasting out, based on land references.

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Re: Lake Mead B-29

#3 Post by Pontius Navigator » Wed Aug 03, 2022 9:31 pm

Agree, we had a close call over Lake Garda. We were doing a dawn raid on the airfield at Bresica. I had it on radar and then lost it. It took a moment to check the rad alt and realised we were slowly descending over the lake.

Happened to a Shackleton too. Pilot was demonstrating how hard it was to determine height over a smooth sea in the Med. Knocked the radar off.

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Re: Lake Mead B-29

#4 Post by Wodrick » Wed Aug 03, 2022 10:39 pm

In a different life, about 1974, I went with a B707 to fix the Doppler in flight. The outside the pressure hull components I changed prior to flight, the remainder were in Lwr 41 and accessible. Just past the West coast of Eire I got the whole shebang working and Orft we jolly well went destination YYZ. After the tech stop in YQX it's YYZ next stop over the St Lawrence Seaway both Dopplers clocked off and I started to make my way down to 41. Flt Eng said don't bother son that always happens, it's the smooth water, no reflections.

My radar over water story again.
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Re: Lake Mead B-29

#5 Post by Pontius Navigator » Thu Aug 04, 2022 6:55 am

Aye, Green Satin was a b****r at times. Can't remember problems with later Decca models, 62m and 67 IIRC.

The 62m, IIRC, had a 3 fixed beam transmission using 3 stable freqs. No hunting aerial or phonic wheel velodynes.

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Re: Lake Mead B-29

#6 Post by Boac » Thu Aug 04, 2022 7:18 am

Happened to a Shackleton too.
Then there is the (apocryphal?) story of the Hastings QFI demonstrating how difficult is was to judge height over a smooth water surface when both inboard engines stopped.

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Re: Lake Mead B-29

#7 Post by CharlieOneSix » Thu Aug 04, 2022 10:39 am

Wodrick wrote:
Wed Aug 03, 2022 10:39 pm
...... both Dopplers clocked off and I started to make my way down to 41. Flt Eng said don't bother son that always happens, it's the smooth water, no reflections.
In the 60's, when on anti-submarine tasks, in the Wessex we used Doppler to initially establish an automatic hover prior to lowering the sonar. In the Far East with calm waters the Doppler would rarely make the hover on its own so you had to tweek back on the cyclic to let the rotor downwash catch up and then it worked okay. In the hover the sonar was lowered and once it was in the water the Doppler had done its job and the automatic hover used drift forks around the sonar cable to keep the Wessex directly above the sonar set.
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