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Savoia Marchetti SM.79 sparviero bomb bay


Smudger2

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Hi does anyone know if the Savoia Marchetti SM.79 Sparviero had a bomb bay or were the bombs located under the fusilage like on the torpedo varants?

 

Does anyone possess any pictures to share?

 

Many thanks,

 

Rob

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  • 2 weeks later...

Ok, i have studied the diagrams , does anyone have ay pictures of the exterior bomb bay doors ( are the large openers or small individual openers) and also a picture of the gun bay area of the rear of the cabin showing the bulkhead infront of the bomb bay area.

 

Many thanks,

 

Rob

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Very nice drawings and photos. BTW - what a stupid idea to keep bombs vertically, and especially up side down...Many bombers from interwar time had this kind of set-up. The constructors were apparently not listening to lessons of physics in school...;)

Cheers

Jerzy-Wojtek

(a physicist)

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The reason why the bombs were put in nose upwards was because the bombardier had to manually arm the fuze before their release, unlike RAF bombs which had an air-flow operated arming mechanism. afaik the German bombs were armed by ground crew after loading into the aircraft

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Actually the SM.79 didn't necessarily carry the bombs upside down.. or better, some bombs were and others weren't. 500 and 250 Kg bombs were carried nose down, the 100 Kg bombs were carried nose up.

The reason for the vertical arrangement of the bomb bay is that the aircraft was originally designed as a racer and fast transport, without any provision for bombing equipment. When the type attracted the interest of the air force, the company decided to use this arrangement to minimize the impact of the modifications on the structure of the airframe. The air force was not really too convinced by this arrangements but tests showed that results were decent enough and accepted the design.

It's worh mentioning that there wasn't a proper bomb bay but there was a frame onto which "containers" for the different sizes of bombs were bolted on depending on the needs. This also meant that there was no flexibility in choosing bombs of different types, the load had to be of bombs of the same type with the corresponding containers set.

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Vertical location of bombs was more common in many countries. Just fact racall: He-111, Breda 65, Aero A 101,... - This was I think remain of WWI way of droping small bombs by gunner mannually - the precission of attack in such vertical orientation of bomb had to be very poor...

J-W

 

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Nice pictures again, but i still need to see the bulkhead wall section directly infront of the bomb bay area, but viewed from the rear of the cockpit  ( viewed from the cockpits rear gun bay area ). 

I s there a cabin door leading to the bomb bay area or just an open walkway straight through the plane?

 

Many thanks,

 

Rob

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19 hours ago, Black Knight said:

The reason why the bombs were put in nose upwards was because the bombardier had to manually arm the fuze before their release, unlike RAF bombs which had an air-flow operated arming mechanism. afaik the German bombs were armed by ground crew after loading into the aircraft

Some Italian bombs were armed the same as RAF bombs, with air-flow fuzes.

 

https://www.scribd.com/document/138235345/Italian-Bombs-and-Fuzes-by-Royal-Engineers-UK-1948

 

Some or all German bombs were armed electrically, with fuzes set into the side of the bomb.

 

 

Chris

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Nice pictures again, but i still need to see the bulkhead wall section directly infront of the bomb bay area, but viewed from the rear of the cockpit  ( viewed from the cockpits rear gun bay area ). 

So if anyone has any pictures of this view, then please share them here.

Is there a cabin door leading to the bomb bay area or just an open walkway straight through the bomb bay area and down the plane's fusilage?

 

Many thanks,

 

Rob

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 Rob, are you are referring to the bulkhead between the bomb bay and the cockpit in line with the rear main wing spar on the illustration in post  #5?

If this is the case than the bulkhead you are looking for is not a bulkhead at all, it is a narrow divider open at both sides. 

In the top photo of post #15, the person with black pants is standing inside the cockpit with the narrow grey wall between him and the bomb racks in the bomb bay. This is where the you would stand to fire the machine gun over the bomb bay, I think?

 In the top photo of post #17 this divider is seen from the cockpit looking toward the bomb bay, the bomb rack can be just seen in the top left.

The bottom right photo of post #17 shows the same divider from the bomb bay looking forward.

 It looks like that this particular bomb bay does not have bomb tubes installed, the bombs containers (thanks Giorigo N) probably hang from the brass coloured latches seen in both photos of post #15.

 

I hope I have not misunderstood the question.

 

Garry c

Edited by Garry c
personal stupidity
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Thank you for that, i think you are right about the guy in the black trousers/pants, he is standing in the space right where i would like to see pictures of, the rear facing gunners bay.

From looking at the cutaway drawings, it seems the walkway is on the port side of the aircraft only as it goes through the bomb bay area, therefore it seems unlikely that there would be two openings from this bulkhead section, i may be wrong about this, hopefully some kind soul will put some pictures on this thead of the said bulkhead clearly showing it from the gunners bay.

 

Many thanks,

 

Rob

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