Flying-Bomb Secrets

Northern Advocate, 3 October 1944, Page 3

Flying-Bomb Secrets

LONDON. October 2. Details of the flying-bomb’s construction, and an unexpected fault which may have saved hundreds of lives, were revealed to the Press on a visit to the Ministrv for Airci’aft Production Research Station, where a flying-bomb, which had landed without exploding, was examined and photographed. “The Times” says that the distance travelled by a flying-bomb is controlled by a small windmill in the nose. The windmill’s revolutions are recorded on an electrical counter. When it has travelled a certain distance the flying-bomb is pushed over into a steep dive. Experts say that many lives were - sJvefi by an unforeseen warning by this action. The fiying'-bomb, when directed downward, throws fuel into the top of the petrol tank, and the engine, f hus starved of fuel, stops. Experts say that the flying-bomb certainly was intended to dive with the engine running. Londoners learned to listen for the stopping engine—a warning' the Germans never intended to give. Tile belief that flying-bombs, were radiocontrolled has not survived investigation. There is nothing in the nature of a radio receiver, but a small number of flyingbombs earned a wireless transmitter with a trailing aerial, allowing information to be obtained on the flying-bomb’s course. Flying-bombs are made for the utmost ease in production, and are constructed almost entirely of mild steel. The jotpropuision unit is cheap and easy to build. A flying-bomb filled with fuel and ready for launching weighs 4700 lbs., including a warhead of 2000 lbs., which is composed almost entirely of explosive. There are tw'O mechanical and one electrical fuses.