Whirlwind - Barrett Tillman [12]
Nevertheless, few airmen pushed harder or more eloquently for full development of “the American weapon” than Seversky. Nearly as concerned with aviation’s philosophical aspects as Douhet had been, Seversky published his “Air Power Lessons for America” in 1942. By war’s end they proved about one-third accurate: among other things, he underestimated navies and aircraft carriers while overstating bombing’s effect on morale. However, some of his lessons later gained credence with improved technology.
For all his success as an author and lecturer, no venue matched Seversky’s bravura performance in the 1943 Disney version of Victory Through Air Power. Aside from the cinematic artistry, Seversky’s onscreen performance mesmerized many viewers. Moving about the soundstage, his blue eyes seemingly penetrating the camera, he made an impressive appearance, reinforced by a Count Dracula voice that left audiences spellbound.
Yet for all his background and knowledge, Seversky conjured a peculiar plan. Narrating a polar view of the world, he espoused quashing Japan with long-range bombers from, of all places, the Aleutians. Whether he had ever flown there, he should have realized that the Alaskan weather factory produced arguably the worst flying environment on earth, with base construction and logistics posing enormous problems as well.
However, Seversky waged a single-minded crusade to convert his countrymen to the Mitchell vision of airpower: an all-conquering force that would turn the Army and Navy into supporting arms. Reality forced itself upon such grandiose visions, but it would be difficult to overstate Seversky’s influence with the American reading public.
Meanwhile, airpower’s hands-on practitioners took over from the theorists. In that regard, Seversky handed off to another émigré from even more unlikely origins.
The world’s most famous bombsight was the brainchild of Carl Norden, born of Dutch parents in Java in 1880. After studying engineering in Europe he sought opportunity in America and became an industry consultant before the Great War. Impressed by his work with the Sperry Gyroscope Company, in 1920 the Navy asked Norden to develop a gyro-stabilized bombsight to replace the British and American types then in use.
Two years later Norden’s design was successfully tested, and the Army took note. Despite a long rivalry, the two services had decided to standardize on some items, including a precision bombsight. The first large order (eighty Mark XI sights at $5,000 each) came in 1927, based on tests that demonstrated a mean error of 110 feet from aim point at 6,000 feet altitude.
Peering through his eyepiece, a bombardier set up his Norden for the attack with the aircraft’s automatic pilot slaved to the sight so the bombardier was flying the airplane through his sight. Because accuracy depended on an absolutely level bombing platform, the Norden used two gyroscopes set to maintain wings level and a constant plumb line relative to the ground.
The bombardier had already performed a crucial task, setting values for speed, altitude, temperature, and barometric pressure. Then he consulted a thick book of mathematical tables to synchronize the sight and aircraft speeds.
As the bomber approached the target, the bombardier put his crosshairs on the desired impact point via a movable mirror that measured the changing approach angle. In his eyepiece the target appeared stationary, and the bombardier could make subtle course corrections by turning knobs that controlled the autopilot. That was important because winds aloft adversely affected a bomb’s trajectory, requiring the human operator to “kill his drift” via the sight. Judging the wind was more art than science, especially since winds could be diverse at various altitudes.
Contrary to the movies, the bombardier did not press a button before shouting “Bombs away!” Rather, the exercise in three-dimensional geometry was calculated for the sight to release the bombs at the instant the plane passed through a predetermined point above the earth. Atop