Why I Don't Have a Social Life

[Wistarmo]

I spend my time restoring these things, even until the wee hours of the morning.  Actual bombsight operations start at 5:18 in the video

 

Edited January 1, 2016 by Wistarmo

[carusoam]

Mount one on the Mooney...

Speed, efficiency and accuracy.  Flour bomb competition!

Best regards,

-a-

[Yetti]

This has some awesome lines.  "How about you mister"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rAYRv8T5jEg

[Wistarmo]

Just for clarification, actual bombsight operations begin at 5:18 in the video.

[MyNameIsNobody]

My uncle was a B-29 Bombadier.  Worked in Los Alamos (Nukes) after war.

[jbs007]

Thanks for sharing Wistarmo, that's a hell of a piece of history you are preserving!  Not sure if you'd rather keep it in your house, but have you considered talking to the National WWII museum in New Orleans about a presentation of it?  Or a Smithsonian...

[kmyfm20s]

That is a pretty amazing piece of equipment. Is that you presenting in the video? How many have you restored and what do you do with them when your finished?

[DaV8or]

Wow. What an intricate, complicated non user friendly piece of equipment to have to use while you are being bounced around by turbulence, freezing your ass off, airplane drifting back and forth from variable winds, flak exploding near by causing you to fear for your life and nothing but pressure on you because everyone else in the plane is risking their life and is there solely for the purpose getting you to the target to do your job. Then there is the US military, the US government and the all the tax payers back home that spent considerable effort and expense to get you to that point in time and space to do this one job, but they gave you this one crazy piece of tech that you could easily screw up.

I would imagine that there must have been a lengthy checklist that went along with this thing. There are way too many things to screw up.

I got to work on crew for the Discovery Channel several years ago where we went and interviewed a WWII bombardier that actually completed his 25 missions and went home. He was never hurt, but friends all around him were dying and he lost a few airplanes too. He was a great guy, real funny and liked to talk about it. His attitude was surprising and not what the producers were looking for. They were looking for a guy that would gush and get all emotional about the loss of his friends and go on about patriotism or something, but what they got was a guy that said "better them than me" when his buddies died and had no problem leaving the army and going home when his time was up rather than stay and fight. He was a kick. I liked him.

He had zero interest in planes, or flying. He has no real interest in WWII history, or any of the reunion type stuff. The War in Europe was just a job he did when he was a kid  and this member of the Greatest Generation would have rather stayed home, but made the best of it, did his job and went home as soon as possible. His real interest was sports cars and that's what he did after the war. At one point he owned a European sports car import dealership and we talked about that a lot. The only reason he schemed to get in the Army Air Corp was he figured he would get to meet more girls that way. He was right.

They asked him if he ever thought about the people he was dropping bombs on and he said something like- "Nope. It was war and it was my job. Didn't think about it then and haven't since." He was the perfect guy for the job.

[Wistarmo]

Yes, that is me presenting in the video.  This is the first complete system I have restored, both stabilizer and sighthead.  I have had tremendous assistance from my local avionics shop (Central Florida Avionics) as well as from kind and interested people around the country, some of whom have far more experience than I do.  I know that the Smithsonian and National WWII museums have their own Norden bombsights; I don't know if they would have any interest in a working system.  I have all the components bolted down very securely, so disassembling the thing for transport for demonstrations would be a major problem to do it on a regular basis.  I think I may be demonstrating this at MacDill AFB's 75th anniversary event on April 16th in Tampa. 

I am hoping to get another system up and running later this year.  As far as the marketplace for these things go, there appears to be very little demand for working systems.  99.9% of people who purchase a Norden sighthead just want to put it on display.  I am not sure there is any more demand for a complete working system, but I will test the waters if I can get another one up and running.  I plan to hang on to my current system for some time.

Also, there may be a lifetime marriage limit on how many of these things you can restore.  Having to hang your head and answer, "What time did you come to bed last night?" can be draining.  

There is a preflight checklist to be performed which is rather lengthy; on the bomb run there was another checklist which was much shorter.  I could make a video of putting the system through the checklists if there is interest.  I would be happy to answer any questions out there from the group.

Edited January 3, 2016 by Wistarmo

[DaV8or]

Sure, I have questions since you said you don't mind questions. I love hearing about stuff like this and the people that do these crazy labors of love.

• How did you get your Norden sight and how much do they cost?
• How long did it take you to get it finished?
• Did you have to fabricate new parts, or were there enough spares out there in the world?
• Does the interface with the auto pilot work?
• How many of these do you think are left?
• Did any other air force during WWII ever come up something similar?

Thanks again for sharing!

[Wistarmo]

I purchased a non-functional stabilizer and sighthead in Tampa to begin with, and planned to do nothing more than display them.  However, I couldn't stop playing with them and then decided to see if I could make them work.  I got my stabilizer up and running, but the sighthead had too many parts scavenged.  I took the Mooney up to Delaware and purchased another sighthead in better condition.  It still needed work, but my experience with the original sighthead helped me get it fixed.  There really aren't too many spare parts, and the tolerances are so unbelievably fine that swapping parts is unreliable.  I did have to change some parts out on the bomb release mechanism on my functional sighthead using parts from the non-functional one.  The bottom line is that to have a working system, it can't be too far gone.  Pretty much your only source of spare parts would be another sighthead.

To get it all up and running took me about eight months.  The U.S. had an earlier bombsight, the Sperry S-1, and they developed an A-5 autopilot for that.  The Norden system started out with the Stabilized Bombing Approach Equipment (SBAE) but eventually they went to Honeywell and developed the C-1 autopilot specifically for the Norden.  This formed a complete autopilot system allowing the bombardier to pilot the plane using the sight while on the bomb run.  I do not have a C-1 autopilot/system.  The largest spy ring ever busted, the Duquesne ring, handed over the Norden plans to the Germans early in the war.  They were more interested in dive-bombing and did not have four-engine heavy bombers, so they really weren't interested in making a fully stabilized system.  They came up with the Carl Zeiss Lotfernrohr 7 bombsight, with later models having gyro stabilization.

I think there are many Norden sightheads out there, and quite a bit less stabilizers.  Although the supply of stabilizers is smaller, the demand is much less, so the cost is less for the stabilizer in most cases.  Prices are all over the place, some on eBay being real bargains and some way over-priced.  It seems that people are really obsessed with cosmetics and sights advertised as "still in the crate!"  I have seen sights advertised as "new" or "never used"  that did not work, and beat up looking things that ran.  If all you want is a cosmetic display, you can get sightheads for $2-3,000 and stabilizers for around $1500 or a little more.  These things are usually sold "as is" with no guarantee that they will work.  I would not buy a system expecting it to work; I would only buy it after physically inspecting it/powering it up.  The Mooney helps you go look at them.

[Wistarmo]

Here is a link to a video of the Pre-flight and Bomb Run checklists being performed:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCLbNshm7Zg

Edited January 3, 2016 by Wistarmo