Looks like the badge from an RAF Officer’s side hat (forage cap).

Just to clarify myself. AGS, is Aircraft General Standards which covers BRITISH Aircraft Parts. There was nothing in the advert to suggest the stud shown was American AN, MS or NAS.

AGS = Aircraft General Spares
🙂

The only thing that still seems a little odd is (as I mentioned before) the practicality of getting the entire load of bombs into a picture cropped that tightly. Do we really think that the entire load could be released within that small amount of time/space? I tend to go with the belief that it is a manipulated photo with 2-3 images merged together.

Sorry, but I’m beginning to feel a little frustrated here. The interval between bomb releases was determined by setting the release interval to afford the required impact spacing. Eg, 35 x 0.1 gives a complete release sequence in 3.5 sec. In real time, timings would be less than that but I don’t recall that we were in the millisecond range. For the purposes of the photo, I would assume that they used the minimum possible time interval; perhaps .01 or .02sec

[Could the whole load be dropped like that? Doesn’t seem very likely…

Why not? 5 x 7-Store carriers operating in the appropriate release sequence was always possible – it may be wasteful but that’s another matter. Of course, the B-52 can still do it albeit with more!

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Inky:

Yes indeedy, there was an external stores (including bombs !) role, possibly because of the Aden & Yemeni rebels trouble in the early sixties. PM me with your email and I’ll dig out something from the Vol 1 I have which shows the lugs. When I got on them, there was nil training for such a role and I can’t recall anyone ever saying they did it either, but some of the early ones at Thorney had the lugs I recall.

RPM…

If memory serves me correct, 6 x 1000 lb bombs were shown in an armament AP. Configuration was 6 carriers (each loaded with one bomb) installed 3 per fuselage side (one behind the other). Never saw it but remember the book.

“Interesting stuff. But what the pictures really emphasise, is you can plan when satellites are coming overhead and put all the toys away!“

Standard Operating Procedure for a long long time!

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Think there are a few larger than life stories developing here! Lightnings had over wing fuel tanks- called OWTs they were in fact Ferry tanks that means they were designed to be put on prior to a deployment say the far east. Once the aircraft landed the tanks would be taken off- it was never planned to do combat in them – in fact I think the G limit full was 2.5 empty 4G I can’t recall- also they were subsonic tanks. As to the fuel burn an average sortie with tanks could last 1.30 -1.45 un refueled so it’s not correct that one tank was used before you got airborne hope this helps

This was my recollection too – OWT were for ferry purposes only. Jettison/fitment was achieved by means of a cartridge-operated Ejector Release Unit (ERU) which “pushed” the tank away from the wing. I doubt that the ERU would be capable of raising a full tank to achieve separation. The ERUs were of a similar design to those fitted to Lightning missile packs and Hunter wing pylons.