Bomber
| Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Bomber aircraft |
A bomber is a type of airplane that is used to attack ground targets, mainly by dropping bombs. The first bombers were made at the start of World War I.
Bombers usually fly low to the ground and can fly at slow speeds. Because of this, bombers are not outfitted to fight other airplanes. To make up for this, bombers have many guns.
World War II [change]
Bombers in World War II had large crews, sometimes as many as 12 people. Usually a bomber had a pilot, a bombadier, a co-pilot/navigator, a nose gunner, a gunner on the bottom (which could shoot forwards and back, a tail gunner, a top gunner, and a couple of side gunners.
Modern day [change]
Bombers now have one or two people in them. The other positions have been replaced by computers. Bombers have very few guns on them partly because they are much faster. In bombing missions now, the pilot drops a bomb and leaves as quickly as possible. In the Vietnam War, bombers were made that could travel at Mach 2 or Mach 3, so a nuclear bomb could be dropped without killing the people in the airplane. This tactic was never used, obviously, but it changed the purpose of bombers.
Other websites [change]
|
||||||||