Gondola is the general term for the usually-armored ventral
casemate
A casemate is a fortified gun emplacement or armored structure from which guns are fired, in a fortification, warship, or armoured fighting vehicle.Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary
When referring to antiquity, the term "casemate wall" me ...
-style positions used on many World War II-era military bomber aircraft, especially on German designs, where they were usually known as ''Bodenlafette'', often shortened to ''Bola''
(from German ''Boden'', 'floor', + ''Lafette'' 'gun carriage or mounting', from French ''l'affût'', gun carriage).
Gondolas were either used to house a gunner or a
bombardier.
Gallery
Examples of gondolas on World War II military aircraft:
File:Bundesarchiv Bild 101I-385-0587-07, Flugzeug Heinkel He 111 H-Z.jpg, Heinkel He 111
The Heinkel He 111 is a German airliner and bomber designed by Siegfried and Walter Günter at Heinkel Flugzeugwerke in 1934. Through development, it was described as a " wolf in sheep's clothing". Due to restrictions placed on Germany after t ...
H bomber with its ''bola'' gondola just behind the bomb bay
File:Bundesarchiv Bild 101I-402-0270-05A, Flugzeug Junkers Ju 88.jpg, Junkers Ju 88
The Junkers Ju 88 is a German World War II ''Luftwaffe'' twin-engined multirole combat aircraft. Junkers Aircraft and Motor Works (JFM) designed the plane in the mid-1930s as a so-called '' Schnellbomber'' ("fast bomber") that would be too fast ...
A bomber's nose, clearly showing the classic ''bodenlafette'', or ''bola'', undernose form of gondola fitted, in one form or another, to almost all German bomber designs of World War II
File:Boeing B-17D at Wright Field.jpg, B-17
The Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress is a four-engined heavy bomber developed in the 1930s for the United States Army Air Corps (USAAC). Relatively fast and high-flying for a bomber of its era, the B-17 was used primarily in the European Theater ...
D Flying Fortress of 1940, having its "bathtub" gondola in virtually the same location as the He 111H
File:Bundesarchiv Bild 101I-674-7766-07, Flugzeuge Heinkel He 177.jpg, Heinkel He 177
The Heinkel He 177 ''Greif'' (Griffin) was a long-range heavy bomber flown by the ''Luftwaffe'' during World War II. The introduction of the He 177 to combat operations was significantly delayed, by both problems with the development of its ...
As, with the foreground aircraft's nose prominently showing the bulky ''bola'' under the cabin
File:SM79 193.jpg, A flight of four Italian Savoia-Marchetti SM.79 ''Sparviero'' trimotor bombers, each with a similar gondola behind the bomb bay, but primarily used for the bombardier on this design, because of the nose-mounted engine taking up a bombardier's usual location
See also
Other types of aircraft equipped with gondolas:
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Airship
An airship or dirigible balloon is a type of aerostat or lighter-than-air aircraft that can navigate through the air under its own power. Aerostats gain their lift from a lifting gas that is less dense than the surrounding air.
In early ...
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Balloon (aircraft)
In aeronautics, a balloon is an unpowered aerostat, which remains aloft or floats due to its buoyancy. A balloon may be free, moving with the wind, or tethered to a fixed point. It is distinct from an airship, which is a powered aerostat tha ...
References
Aircraft weapons
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