DC4

Video from the channel Pilot Port about Douglas DC-4, linked on its Above Ten Thousand entry. Duration: 12:11. Language: English. Video type: Documentary.

A segment from a television programme following the Buffalo Airways crew in Mackenzie (British Columbia). There, one of the company's DC-4s takes part in the filming of a British documentary recreating the 1943 attacks on German dams, known as the Dam Busters. After several practice passes over a lake, the pilot releases an 800-pound bouncing bomb that skips over the water and strikes a dam built for the occasion. The dam is then blown up with a submerged charge.

The programme recalls that in 1943 the bouncing bombs were designed to sink next to the base of the dams and explode there. That is why the recreation has two phases: the bomb's impact and the subsequent demolition. The filming is presented as taking place 67 years after those attacks. During the preparations the dam starts leaking water, and the engineer proposes reinforcing the abutments so it holds until the drop.

For the drop, the aircraft must fly at around 340 km/h and just 60 feet above the lake. The bomb is released at a precise point and must travel almost half a kilometre while bouncing. On the last practice run it bounces five times. On the actual attempt, with the bomb spinning at 1,430 rpm, it hits the centre of a dam about 10 metres high on the first attempt and dislodges blocks weighing about 5,000 pounds each.