Masters of the Air Ball Turret drop- Why and How Explained
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 11 ก.พ. 2024
- In the event of a wheels up belly landing the bomber should drop it’s ball turret in order to minimize airframe structural damage. The pilot may also order the jettisoning of the ball turret to reduce the plane’s weight in a fuel starved flight. This video will review the steps the crew would need to take to drop the ball turret.
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Prior to that episode I had no idea dropping the ball turret was possible. I was a bit skeptical but it totally makes sense for belly landings. Thanks for another great video!
I've been explaining this procedure to people for some time as a part of debunking the myth about ball turret gunners getting ground into hamburger during wheels up emergency landings back in England, it's part of the explanation I give to people as proof that it never happened despite Andy Rooney's famous article in Stars and Stripes magazine during WW2 when he was assigned to the 8th Air Force as a war correspondent.
As I tell people in the first place there's manual cranks on the ball turret that enabled them to crank the turret to the "hatch up" position so the gunner could get out in the event power to the turret went out, afterwards if a wheels up landing was necessary the ball turret needed to be dropped because with it in place it'd break the B17's back causing it to break up making for a less than desirable belly landing, contrary to what people believe the ball turret was very sturdy and was actually stronger than the fuselage in that area, they wouldn't break apart or get ground down to nothing.
Also if you watch at the beginning of the movie Twelve O'clock High when the great Paul Mantz belly lands the B17 when it's approaching the runway you'll see there's no ball turret sticking out of the bottom, this wasn't done for historical accuracy but for the same reason that ball turrets were dropped on B17's forced to belly land, it was removed to keep the plane from breaking apart during the stunt.
Also it was standard procedure for the crews to drop the ball turrets while crossing the English Channel when possible, the USAAF didn't want eleven hundred pound bowling balls rolling across the English countryside at 100 MPH wiping out homes, cows, barns and everything else with "Property of 8th Air Force" written on them.
@@dukecraig2402 But you have to admit that using ball turrets as bowling balls with barns as the pins would be a much more awesome sport than bowling is.
Same here.
I never heard of the ball turret having the ability to be jettisoned.
Interesting. Definitely not a speedy process though.
@@dukecraig2402 I would totally take the jettison risk for a free ball turret.
Forgot about battle damage
Grew up across the street from a man who ditched three times in the Channel. I was a kid in the late 1960s and we talked almost daily for 15 years. He never talked about combat, just funny things that happened in North Africa and England. When he past away his obituary was a full column in our local paper. Turns out he flew three tours with the USAAF, just shy of 100 mission, had three distingused flying crosses, and many other medals and citations. I think he never talked about combat due to all the young men he must have know who didn;t come back. He had a really unusual life after the war, university scholar, journalist, artist.
common thing, guys that saw and did didnt talk much about it later.
Understanding how precious life is, many did not piss it away staying drunk and being a victim.
It was a different breed of man in that era. The veterans in my hometown were the same, never talked about combat just the funny events they saw. No doubt they had PTSB, but they gritted their teeth and went on to live fulfilling lives.
Yep, my Dad fought in Patton's Third Army, 4th Armored Division. Loved watching war movies like Patton, Kelly's Heroes and the Battle of the Bulge - the later movie he said sucked because the scenery was all wrong. He also said that the movie Patton was as close to the real thing as we will get - except for the voice. Other than that, he talked about some funny stories but nothing about the real battles. I learned more about his time serving from my uncle and aunt, and sadly that was after he passed away.
Growing up we had a gentleman like this in the neighborhood. He would tell us endless exciting stories about his wartime experiences. Many years after his passing I googled him only to find that he never served and just made everything up.
In 2007 the B-17 Aluminum Overcast visited the local airport. While I was taking pictures of it I talked to a WW2 vet. He said he was a ball turret gunner on a B-17 and later a gunner on a B-29. He was the first person to tell me that a ball turret could be dropped if needed. I was surprised because in all the books I had read and movies and tv shows I had seen I didn't recall that fact ever coming up. Which is surprising since there was an entire TV series '12 O'Clock High' and you would think it would come up in 78 episodes.
Without the benefit of CGI, how expensive would it be to do a ball turret drop sequence for TV?
@@JinKee A good model could do it cheaply, but model work doesn't line up with live action an stock footage all that well.
there was an onboard tool kit and instruction by the flite engineer on how to do it,,most of the "facts " are hollywoods version,,like commo chatter,,most all plane to plane was morse code by the radio operator,,way less dramatic then the movies
@@richardsmith2684 I was in the AF in communications in analog networks, but I am also a HAM radio operator, which back when I started still required a fair amount of morse code. The AF got rid of the "radio operator" career field back in the '90s because the radios could basically operate themselves (altho thats not really true for shortwave, but that was phasing out as well).
One night shift, early in the morning I was working in the headquarters unit, standing in as a station of opportunity for the field units to practice with (which still had radio operators), but the propagation was dropping and it was getting hard to communicate, so the (actual per se radio operator) at the other end said "well the path is dying we're either going to have to shut down or switch to morse code". You could tell he wanted to shut down so he could take a nap, but I said "OK, lets switch to morse code." (if I have to stay awake for your benefit, you can too!)
He (you know - the bespoke radio operator who was required to know morse code for his job) was like "You... know... morse code??" "Yup, lets go". So we switched to morse code. He kept sending "QRS!" (send slower). LOL. Still tell that war story to this day (apparently).
Aluminum Overcast is a great aircraft - first plane I ever flew in. Can't wait for her repairs to be finished.
It’s incredible how every statement you make during these videos is immediately backed up by source material. Awesome work
Pretty amazing channel
It’s a rarity on TH-cam!
So, in episode 3, the pilot took a calculated risk. The ball was dropped in the N. end of the Med, plane heading to Africa. It might be enough weight savings to make Africa, or, if you still don't make it, the hole makes for bad ditching.
Never would have recognized that tradeoff w-out your video. Thanks!
Wonderful video. The $3,700 for the gunsite would be worth approximately $63,000 in today’s dollars. No wonder it was important to try and save it before jettisoning the ball turret.
Yeah... I wonder how many of them got saved, with it adding an ADDITIONAL 20 minutes to what must have been an already fraught and desperate process! Not many, I bet.
I've been reading about WW2 aviation for decades. I don't recall anyone ever discussing dropping the ball turret.
Thank you!
Impressive how you keep posting such interesting vids on a subject that’s been covered so thoroughly in recent years. I’m a big fan of this aircraft and knew nothing about the ball turret ditch. Well done sir.
It's nice to know that I'm not the only person who thought he knew a lot about B-17s and had never heard about dropping the ball turret either! 😉
Seems we aren't as knowledgeable as we thought, I too never knew that ditching the ball turret was even a thing.
Thank you for this, I appreciate the information.
My Grandfather was a Weather Officer with the AAF in WWII. He told me about an event he witnessed while there.
A B-17 at his air base had continual problems with it's hydraulics and landing gear. After multiple attempts to repair the system, it was taken up for a test flight. Again, the landing gear would not extend. The pilot was so frustrated, he commanded to leave the ball turret in place for the belly landing. My Grandfather said it broke the aircraft in half.
Sounds like he wanted to make sure the piece of shit was written off so he could get a new one he could count on.
Well that's one way to decommission a faulty aircraft.
@@ronansmith9148 That ball turret should have been painted with a B-17 kill tally for destroying a hostile aircraft that was clearly trying to kill Allied aircrew on multiple occasions.
I had always heard that the ball turret gunner was not able to get out until the plane landed....obviously I was misinformed. Good to hear!
On the B17 the ball turret gunner could not get in it until after the plane took off. I believe the details are in another video
Could be the Liberator…
I've heard of instances when the plane took damage and the turret couldn't be rotated to align it with the hole in the fuselage, which meant he was stuck in there until after landing. It made for a nasty time if the wheels could not be extended.
There's a *lot* of bad lore about the ball turret on a B-17. A consistent favorite is a ball turret gunner being ground into a smear on the runway when a bomber had to do a belly landing. If you were somehow stuck in the turret (not impossible) it certainly wouldn't be a safe place to be when the bomber was skidding down a runway, however it's far from a death sentence either. The ball turret itself is quite strong and most likely will get shoved up into the B-17's fuselage, with the yoke and armature framing puncturing the top in the process.
The true horror of the ball turret is if you need to evacuate quickly, like your aircraft is suddenly losing a lot of altitude. Most of the other crew members have a chance of getting out quickly, the ball turret gunner is going to need a minute.
@malikcarr9872 That 'bad lore' you refer to came from an eyewitness account written by none other than Andy Rooney, war correspondent that flew with the Mighty 8th. He claims to have been present and watched it all happen, but there are doubters to his story.
Once again, a video full of stuff that I'd never even thought of before. Fascinating.
That's fascinating! I've read a lot about B-17s from World War II, and I didn't know they could drop the ball turret until now!
I was genuinely impressed that they included dropping the ball turret in this series. If left attached when a Fort belly landed, it could cause severe damage to the aft fuselage. Great video!
Dang, you set a world speed record for most information possible in 4:31! Very informative!
I have studied WW II aviation for a long time. Your videos are top tier with all the technical information and records. I am glad to see history being saved and shared. Thank you
Thanks for the comment!
Dad was a ball turret gunner. ETO. 8thAF, 487th bg,839th bs. Sheldon crew.
20 minutes to remove the sight, and 20 minutes to get the turret prepped to drop. That’s sounds like a lot of luxury time in what would otherwise be a crunch time.
Two guys before a crash likely could do this in 2 minutes under adrenaline...lol😅
Remember, it's not being done in a crash when the plane is going down. It's being done when preparing for a belly landing because the landing gear is jammed, or some other structural reason. The time it takes for a plane to set up a belly landing is likely more than 20 mins.
They had 4 and 5 hour flights back after being attacked near the target.
Yeah, I'm guessing that none of the bomb sights ever got removed at the very least.
Sometimes the crew had the time.... sometimes.
The exposed main gear wheels trick for more stable belly landings is also used on the A-10 to this day
Didn’t know that the turret could be jettisoned. Depicted in the episode it looked like right after the PIC said jettison the turret it was gone. Now I know there is more to getting it gone. Thank you for the information. Semper Fidelis SSgt B
Thank you for the clear and concise video with no music in the background! Fantastic!
Your time to shine mate. You have been at this long enough now and hopefully enjoying all the extra engagement out of MOAs release.
Extremely professional and have eared all the praise you get. Keep it up, love the discussions and always learning from you.
I bet the ball turret gunner made sure he was either really liked or owed the crew money.
Full respect for the people getting into that ball.
I'll never be able.
Also, the ball needs to be turned a specific way to get In-&-Out. And if it gets stuck, the person in there is stuck in there, His fate is either getting smooshed at landing or dropped.
Kinda unsettling if you think about it.
@@johnhill2927
Guns must point straight down so the door is up for entry/exit. The gunner sits with his back on the door. He can bail out with the guns horizontal and facing forward..
@@hotrodray6802 There's no room in the ball turret for a parachute, though. He would have to reach back into the plane to grab his chute.
@@johnhill2927The smallest person on the crew was the one who crawled into the ball.
@@ogukuo72 No, there is room - especially for those who opted to wear a chest chute, it's more a matter that it made an already cramped space even more cramped - so most opted as it was to rely on the harness (in the event the turret was shot away from out under them) and being able to get back in the plane and grab it.
Thanking the algorithm gods for finding your channel. Thanking you and the commentators for the INCREDIBLE depth you share. The amount of work and passion you’ve taken to walk us through these details is not taken for granted. Thank you so much for bringing this important history to life.
Excellent! When watching masters of the air I saw the order to "Jettison" the ball turret and the next scene was the ball turret dropping away. I thought that was a mistake, knowing that the ball turret could not be dropped by flipping a switch or pushing a button. I didn't know that it was a standard procedure to drop the turret for belly landings so I now realize that the depiction was accurate although they elected not to show that there was a 20 minute+ procedure to do so.
Very interesting!
I'm in my 70's. And in my youth I had many, many personal conversations with WW2 VETS that served in the Air Corps. And NEVER have I EVER heard any mention of them OR ANY OTHER BOMBER having to jettison the "Ball turrent"!!!!!
This must have been VERY RARE, to say the least !!!!!
It wasn't common to take the time to jettison the turret, but it was authorized. Early in the war there are many film clips of B-17's landing wheels or one wheel up. The telltale of the turret still there is usually seen as the support box for the turret rammed through the top of the fuselage. The turret itself is rather fragile and most likely would crush in the landing, but the damage to the aircraft could be extensive. Saving repair man hours was critical during the war and as almost all maintenance had to be done in the evening or at night, time was a factor. Major repair could take up what little hanger space they had with a policy of standard blackout conditions prevailing. Even though the turret was expensive, many extra units were manufactured for possible use after a jettison event. This I believe is why the ball turret is the most common of surviving turrets today and it was more trouble to scrap than it was worth after the war. The correct B-17 top turrets are the very hard ones to find as well as the Bendix turrets used on B-25 aircraft. The Martin 250CE top turret seems to be the most common still found.
True
Extra turrets sat in some government wharehouse for years
Also had training turrets
It happened to my uncle.
I found this video informative and interesting to watch. A few months ago i had the privilege to see and actually touch one of the few remaining B-17 that are left in a museum in Tucson, Arizona. I like the effect that Masters of the air sparks interest in this topic and i appreciate channels like this one. Thank you for sharing this great video! Best wishes from Germany!
I watch many many ww2 channels and have read many books on the subject, and I am consistently impressed how often this channel shows me things that l have never seen or read elsewhere. Thank you for such an authentic, well researched channel and such great quality content. Keep up the great work.
Thank goodness, I rewatch the episodes a few times, never ever knew that you could drop the ball turret.
This is seriously one of the best channels on TH-cam every video is informative. It would be great if you did a detailed dive into some of the tactical bombers as well like the B26.
Another great video. Thank you for you diligence and dedication...
This is an exquisitely detailed explanation of something that I did not know was possible. It does you credit.
Thanks for the great detail, I had no idea. There are a lot of misconceptions out there about the ball turret position. Glad to have this info.
I'm glad that you put out this vid. It will hopefully put to bed the myth of men trapped in the ball on a belly landing with no gear. I've read an account where they dropped the ball with the crew member in it. They opened his parachute in the plane and dropped the turret. He got pulled out of the turret and survived. He commented that he gad bruised and scraped hips from going through the hatch but better than being dead.
Let's hope your subscribers rocket up as a result of interest in Masters of the Air, you deserve it.
I like how you used a lot of sources in this video along with supporting images. Great work!
I knew they could drop the ball turret but the historic documents and photos gave life to the concept. I koved the retrieve the Sperry gunsight if possible.
Thanks!!! I was trying to figure out how to drop my ball turret and this was a wonderful tutorial. I’m gonna go do it right now so I can make my emergency landing!! :)
“It takes 2 crewmen 20 minutes to release the ball turret”. Good, I first thought it was some sort of switch and was thinking, what if you accidentally turned on that switch mid-flight while the gunner was mounted?
The safety retaining hooks are a comforting feature for the fear of a random hit cutting the yoke assembly and dropping the ball with the gunner still inside.
That was clear, concise, and thorough
The makers of Masters of the Air missed a trick by not consulting with this dude.
Once again, I have learned something. I had no idea it could be jettisoned or how, but it makes sense. Thanks!
Absolutely fascinating. Great work
Great information I didn't know much about until now.
Thanks for another great video.
Interesting that among the steps for dropping the ball turret, making sure the ball gunner was not in it was not listed. You'd think this would be both the first and second to last step.
Thanks, love the commentary on this series
That's the educational part of the TH-cam! Excellent job.
Wow, that was a quick and detailed answer! Thank you!
If anyone built the Monogram B-17 model kit, you know the details of the ball turret and the supporting structure fairly well, and what a PITA it was to build it!!
Thank you for this video. It was quite revelatory to me, and absolutely fascinating.
If I recall, the B-24 could retract the ball turret entirely inside the fuselage. Is this correct?
That is correct, the B-24's Ball turret could be retracted into the fuselage.
Thanks for teaching me one more thing that I didn't know about the Forts!
Excellent concise breakdown. Thank you. ☮
Thanks for the information how to properly drop ball turrets.
Now I just need a B-17 to practice the procedure.
Yes, I think this video is useful.
Good information thanks ! Always learning.
nice video dude, love it!
So amazing how the b-17 is able to belly land that well. I love things that are designed to keep working after they break
They should hire you as a technical advisor! Thanks for the video.
EXCELLENT review!
My uncle was a B 24 pilot during the war. After damage, he lost an engine. He told me that after he lost the second engine, he ordered the ball turret dropped. As one of the other posters states, after years of watching shows and movies, and reading everything I can find on the war, I had never heard that was possible. Now I learn there was even a procedure for it.
Very good video!
Thank you for this instructive video. It's a great skill set that may very well save my life one day.
Thank you...I wondered how it was done
Well done.
To the point with Copies from the actual TM's (Technical Manuals) that so many video's lack.
Great instructive video . Thank God for nerds like you 😉
wonderful vid bro
Very interesting info, well done. 👍
Thanks. Very interesting info.
Corrects two misconceptions I've had forever. First, I always thought the ball turret could be and was retracted into the plane for landing and second, I had no clue it could be jettisoned until that MotA episode.
The turret on the B-24 could be retracted. That's probably the source of your confusion.
Interesting video. I knew they could be dropped, but didn't know the process.
Huh, neat, never heard of that. Thanks for sharing.
I don't think anyone who never experienced air combat, could ever understand the sheer terror of air combat. Had a next door neighbor who was a B-17 pilot at 22 years old. By the time he was 24 he had been a B-17 pilot, shot down and escaped a POW camp! Just an incredible human being and humble!
Good Video/Info.
I wonder if the roar of the engines became deeper when the ball turret dropped.
Very interesting, thanks.
The B-17G at the Imperial war museum still has the original instructions for dropping the ball turret in flight. The instructions were located on the bulkhead forward of the turret, just to the left of the doorway through to the radio room. The instructions were printed on a large paper 'poster' that was permenantly stuck to the bulkhead so they are always at hand in an emergency.
Reminds me of the instructions on how to use the toilet that were placed on the door of the lunar transfer space craft in “2001: A Space Odyssey”!
Cool information!
What a cool video!
Great video
What was the likelihood of the ball turret jamming as shown in the same episode?
A discussion on the development of gunsights, as per the document described, would be good.
Good stuff 👍
I was also wondering about air drag... dropping the ball that early really got me going...lol
Very interesting.
Thanks for the video. This Masters of the Air has been fantastic. In a perfect world the show would have included B-24s lol. Which made me wonder if the Liberator could drop its turret as well? I believe their turrets retracted fully into the airframe...btw the landing gear of the A-10 borrowed from the B-17's main landing gear design in that the wheels still protruded from the wheel wells when up and locked - aiding in a belly landing.
Interesting, I didn’t think about retaining the ball turret in a water landing situation.
Very intersting. Thanks. I knew there was a belly landing protocol but didn't know they suggested dropping the belly turret or with that the rear wheel was extended. I wonder how many belly landings actually followed those steps. I'd guess not all that many. What makes sense in the comfort of a state-side AC'ed office is often not be possible in real life.
Very interesting
Thanks 😎👍
I understand that the ball turret in the B-24 could be retracted into the fusalage for routine take off/Landing. Is it safe to assume that it was also jettisonable if necessary with similar tools/technique?
That's a new one on me, awesome! 🇺🇸👍
Very interesting episode. Also the price of a ball turret must have been incredible back then. Were water landing crews adviced to safe as many expensive parts as possible?
In the Paul Dolan book a bombardier's story and in interviews by James Kirk on the wwii archives website, they both describe dropping ball turrets. Once because of a landing gear malfunction in a new plane and once after ditching everything not bolted down to gain altitude to get over mountains in a wounded plane.
Kool. Thanx
Those turrets were marvels of engineering...and absolutely terrifying to operate by the looks of it.
Thanks...
Question why do they also shoot the bombing scopes when bailing the b17?
Huh, I wonder how that worked without totally messing stuff up? Like if you had a series of bolts attaching it to the airframe, and you start to undo them, the last bolt or two are going to be holding the entire weight and the rest of the assembly is going to be twisting and straining on just that one connection or two.
I would like you to look into how easy the B-17 was t o fly. I understand it was a lot easier to fly than the B-24 and hence easier to keep in formation.
Sure would be nice if you would provide links to the documents you refer to in your videos. Thank you.
Any videos on the Mosquitos?