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Newbie Joined: Mar 20, 2007 Posts: 1 Status: Offline

As a new member from Norway, I would like to post a big hello to you all Razz

Hello!

Ok, enough of the trivia...

I was wondering if any of you guys and girls out there know if M904 is out of production? From what I can read it certainly seems so.

So is there another fuze coming to replace the M904; or do everyone go with FMU-139 nowadays?

Please let me know if you know.

Have fun! Very Happy

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Enthusiast Joined: Feb 25, 2005 Posts: 31 Status: Offline

I worked with the M904 (and it's tail fuze cousin, the M905) as a Munitions Specialist from 1978 through 1998. The latest-produced M904 I ever saw had a manufacture date of 1974. So I would say that production ceased sometime in the 1970's (as a guess). It's still used widely in training and (presumably) combat but it's place will be taken by the more expensive FMU-139 and FMU-152.

M904E4's are still in the USAF inventory, don't know if they are out of production tho and they are managed out of Hill AFB, UT.

Cheers,

ViperDude

GFW1 … F-111E … Incirlick … Hung bomb … Aft “T” lug on BRU did not release … front did … arming wire pulled loose … bomb armed … EOD scared and did not know what to do … SRA weapons troop pulled fuse from bomb … situation under control

I don’t think we use mechanical fuses too much these days

Then again I'm a tester ... not a bomber

EOD Scared?? Funny. Probably they assumed the worst (not a bad option) and were going about things a bit slower than you'd like. So your SrA "saved the day" for everyone. Great. There's a "bomb tech" in Turkey whos 'save the day' video is out on the internet and what happened to him? He's dead. Arming wire pulled loose? vanes spinning in the 400 kt breeze? What condition is the fuze in now? Gonna bet your life on the TO that some egghead wrote a few years ago and a few thousand miles away? Scared? hardly... Didn't know what to do? doubtful at best. Not moving fast enough for everyone who watches bomb squad movies and TV shows? probably.

Ref. the original q... To my knowledge, they're not flown as primary fuzes per se, but I have seen them loaded to fill the nose fuze well instead of wasting a madonna plug. They're not hooked up to anything, and not gonna arm up in flight, but they're there for aerodynamics/ballistics I guess.

Enthusiast Joined: Feb 25, 2005 Posts: 31 Status: Offline

Theoretically (according to T.O. 1-1M-34, anyway) thirty revolutions of the arming vane equals one second of arm time with a tolerance of +/- 20%.. Typically they're set for 4 to 6 seconds for F-16/A-10/F-15E aircraft and the like, so it won't take long for a spinning vane to arm the fuze.

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M904 fuze obsolete? Out of production?