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Cambridge engineers recreate the ‘Dambuster’ raid
THIS UNIVERSE |
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Cambridge engineers recreate the ‘Dambuster’ raid It has gone down in history as one of the world's most daring bombing raids — a feat of engineering matched only in complexity by the sheer bravery of the pilots who carried it out.
But while the “Dambuster” raid on Germany's Ruhr Valley during the Second World War was one of the RAF's finest moments, virtually all the technical notes used to make the mission a success were lost in the 1960s. Now a team of scientists has recreated the mission, carried out by the RAF's 617 Squadron known as the Dambusters, on a lake in Canada, including the construction and launch of the same kind of spinning bomb used to breach the Möhne and Edersee dams in May 1943. The feat is the culmination of a two-year attempt by engineers to understand how the bombing raids were carried out. A maverick inventor, Barnes Wallis, came up with the idea of using bouncing bombs to jump over the heavy torpedo nets protecting Nazi Germany's dams. But his notes and designs were lost in a flood, leaving modern engineers unsure of the exact mechanics of the daring operation. Led by Hugh Hunt, a Cambridge University engineering expert, a team of scientists decided to recreate the bombing run by building a replica dam on a Canadian lake which they then destroyed using a bouncing bomb dropped from a Second World War-era Douglas DC-4. “There's no massive mystery in a theoretical sense but the fact that no one has been able to repeat the mission meant that there was no one alive who knew whether it was difficult, easy, or indeed possible,” Dr Hunt said. “The question was finding out whether anyone could do it again.” The project is the subject of a two-hour documentary, Dambusters — Building the Bouncing Bomb, which was broadcast on UK's Channel 4. The mechanics behind Operation Chastise, the original Second World War attempt to try crippling one of Nazi Germany's busiest industrial valleys, had never been attempted before in wartime. With the Battle of Britain won, Allied command was desperate to take the fight to Germany and attention centred on the Ruhr Valley, a densely populated area that played a key role in arming the Nazi war machine. Mass-bombing runs could have set production back but were often inaccurate. Instead, air chiefs settled on a daring plan to hit a string of dams across the valley. If the dams could be breached, western Germany would be hit with a double whammy: vital hydroelectric plants would be crippled and the area would be flooded with millions of tons of water. The dams themselves were protected by anti-aircraft batteries and thick torpedo nets. Mr Wallis came up with the idea of using barrel-shaped bombs, dropped from a low height,that would spin backwards at 500rpm and skim across the surface of the water before hitting the side of the dams, sinking to the bottom and exploding. The Canadian authorities would not allow the modern-day re-enactment to use a live incendiary, so explosives inside the dam instead were detonated once the pilots had carried out a successful direct hit. A clip of the documentary shows the DC-4 approaching the dam at less than 60ft above the surface of the lake and dropping a spinning bomb which slams perfectly into the side of the dam. The cameramen filming the event hollers with joy as the pilot's voice crackles over the radio: “Right on, Saigon.” Dr Hunt said not every aspect of the bombing mission could be recreated faithfully. “So few Lancaster bombers survive that the team had to use World War II-vintage DC-4 aircraft instead. The dam itself was also one-third the scale of those attacked in Germany — although the rest of the project was scaled accordingly to make it realistic.” |
Seas could rise up
to 1.6 metres by 2100 OSLO: Quickening climate change in the Arctic including a thaw of Greenland's ice could raise world sea levels by up to 1.6 metres by 2100, an international report showed. Such a rise-above most past scientific estimates-would add to threats to coasts from Bangladesh to Florida, low-lying Pacific islands and cities from London to Shanghai. It would also, for instance, raise costs of building tsunami barriers in Japan.
Cuban inventor turns trash into farm tools GUIRA DE MELENA, Cuba: A solitary man trudges through a palm-lined corn field in the Cuban countryside, pulling behind him a rickety contraption that President Raul Castro would love. The man, Yolando Perez Baez, is showing off his latest invention, a spindly, spider-like piece of equipment that sprays pesticide along six rows of crops, instead of the one row he could dose using his usual backpack fumigator.
Telescope array seeking alien life shut by cutbacks LOS ANGELES: The search for intelligent life in the universe beyond planet Earth has been dealt a major blow by government spending cutbacks in the United States. The world's only radio telescope array specially designed to detect potential signals from distant worlds was shut down this month after money ran out, said Seth Shostak, senior astronomer for the group that runs the northern California facility.
Listening telescope for space aliens shut down LOS ANGELES: The search for intelligent life in the universe, at least beyond planet Earth, has been dealt a major blow by government budget constraints. The world's only radio telescope array specially designed to eavesdrop on potential signals from distant worlds was shut down earlier this month after money ran out, said Seth Shostak, senior astronomer for the group that runs the northern California facility. — Reuters
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THIS UNIVERSE Why do trees live for hundreds of years? It is true that some trees are the longest living creatures of this planet. Some of them were standing much before any of the great religions were thought of, or any of the great civilizations originated. Besides the fact that they must belong to very special species of earth, some of the characteristics of trees in general, and some of the longest-living trees in particular, are worth remembering. The big trees stand in their place and, unlike us human beings, never go to war to kill others. Some have been found on high hills of Sierras in California, while others are in high and cold places, very dry most of the year, with barely enough green cover to provide them enough food through photosynthesis. Some are small and others are among the largest creatures of earth. All of them have been lucky to escape forest fires and floods over centuries and millennial adventures. And they come in all shapes. I have seen some of them and they made me feel that they were our sacred ancestors and I bowed to them in respectful salutation. Can rains in India carry radiation because of the nuclear accident in Japan? What you fear is not ruled out. It depends on estimates of different the radioactive nuclides sent up in the atmosphere. I do not have adequate information in this regard. It would also depend on wind patterns. The total effect of the Russian nuclear accident on India was not that large. Is a person lying in coma considered alive or dead? A person lying unconscious cannot be considered as dead till it can be proved that its brain function has also completely stopped. There have been enough cases when people, unconscious for a long time have woken up fully conscious. This has become an important medico-legal question, because there is much demand for body parts of individuals who do not need them any more, raising questions about unsavoury transactions in this area. I doubt if this issue has been adequately resolved anywhere, certainly not in countries with weak medico-legal framework. Readers wanting to ask Prof Yash Pal a question can e-mail him at palyash.pal@gmail.com
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