Dummy Bomb Hits House - from stealth fighter (oops)

A dummy bomb from an Air Force stealth fighter apparently slammed through a home in Monahans on Tuesday.

Officials from Holloman Air Force Base near Alamogordo, N.M., were en route to Monahans Tuesday night to check the site. The base issued a statement that said three inert training munitions were inadvertently released off of the normal range area.

Tech Sgt. Paul Coupaud, a spokesman for the base, said inert training munitions are fake bombs, basically a large chunk of metal.

"It was a training bomb," said Air Force spokeswoman Maj. Josie Fernandez. "It basically gives the feeling and delivery of a real bomb. It closely approximates the delivery and so forth."

Tuesday's crash in Monahans caused no injuries. The Air Force said the other munitions fell in remote areas of Pecos and Maljamar, N.M.

Dick Aker said the object crashed through the bathroom wall and into the floor of the house where his former daughter-in-law, Gloria Aker, lives. He said it broke a water pipe.

"At 4:45 p.m. (CDT) Holloman Air Force Base notified the police department that a piece might have been lost off an airplane," Monahans Police Chief Charles Sebastian said in a news release. "Air Force personnel are en route to Monahans to retrieve the object."

Aker said his grandson and his sister were in the home with Gloria Aker at the time.

"It happened at about 2:45 this afternoon when she (Gloria Aker) was just sitting in the living room," Aker said. "It crashed through the roof and then went through the bathroom wall and into the floor breaking a water pipe."

Fernandez said the Air Force uses the training bombs because they're cheaper. An aircraft such as the F117 can carry up to 12 bombs on a training mission, and they weigh 25 pounds each.

Coupaud didn't know how far the intended target for Tuesday's training mission was from where the munitions fell.

"A board of Air Force officers will be appointed to investigate the incident," he said.

The crash in Monahans initially evoked memories of 1998, when seven boys playing basketball in Monahans saw a shoe-shaped rock crash into an asphalt street. The rock turned out to be the first known meteorite containing traces of water from outer space.

The stone brought $23,000 in an online auction, with each boy getting about $3,000.

Curious.
Inadvertent releases are not unknown and usually are the result of a switch error or some problem with the aircraft systems.
The F-117 does not release a bomb (training or otherwise) unless it’s on an attack axis and with its bomb doors open and the computer says so. In addition, the bomb doors are not opened until the final moments of the attack run.
When on the attack run, with the target designated, the pickle (consent) button is pushed well in advance of the planned release. Then, when the computer thinks it is time, the computer sends a signal and the bomb is released.
What would cause THREE inadvertent releases?
Possibilities include:
1) Massive electrical problem where the consent for the drop was not given and the pilot could not close the bomb doors, thereby stopping inadvertent drops.
2) The pilot was conducting “off-range” training runs with the switches “safed” and some sort of electrical problem caused the computer to release the munition. Please know that during an “off-range” dry attack the pilot should not have “pickled” if there were any training munitions on-board (that’s not done because of the risk of an inadvertent release). However, IF the pilot did arms the system, IF the pilot pickled (consented), IF a training munition was released, and IF the pilot knew the bomb was released, the pilot would have immediately safed his switches, closed the bomb doors and beat feet back home--and not have done addition drops or attack runs.
3) The pilot not knowing he dropped a training bomb (some weigh as little as 25 lbs.) during a supposedly “dry” attack, and he continued with other attacks.
I may be able to understand a SINGLE inadvertent release. But THREE?
There is much more to this story than is being told.

This story on the "dummy" bomb for some reason reminds me of a NOVA episode last night on the Medieval siege engine known as the trebuchet:

Two Trebuchet's -- Medieval Siege Engines

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The trebuchet could hurl a 200 to 300 pound stone ball several hundred yards (one trebuchet in the photo above has just launched a 200-pound stone, which is at the top center of the photo). Repeated firings of this heaviest of heavy artillery of Medieval times could demolish a castle's walls.

What about a cow? Could it hurl a cow?

When I first read the headline, I thought someone had released a munition that homed in on Sheila Jackson-Lee, Maxine Waters, and Cynthia McKinney.

There is much more to this story than is being told.

On that I agree. I can postulate other scenarios where the 'system' gets confused by not correctly following arming/safing procedures combined with bomb-bay doors failing to close (it happens), etc, etc. But until the investigation is complete, you can't determine much here.

What about a cow? Could it hurl a cow?

Fact is sometimes as strange as fiction. You know the British, always eccentric:

On the NOVA program they actually used a trebuchet catapult to hurl a piano. The piano successfully arced through the air, splintering into dozens of pieces upon impact with the ground several hundred yards from launch point.

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