My bombs fall to the ground and lay there

fuse?

forgotten to arm the bombs?

There's 2 parts to this, one is making sure you have armed the bombs. Bombs are not "active" to explode by default, otherwise storage and movement on the ground at your home airfield would be excessively dangerous. Make sure you have toggled your bombs armed before you drop them.

Secondly, you have different fuses you can attach to the bomb. This is done pre-flight (can't change the fuse type in the air!) via the loadout screen. Check the bomb type you intend to carry, and match the fuse option with what you intend to do. I.e. I'm flying a 109E-3b with a SC250. I need to go to the Bombs section of the loadout menu, press Next Bomb until I'm on the SC250, then select fuse type (Dive bomb, Low Level, Hi Alt). If I choose High Alt (which typically is the default) it will show a ">1km" in the fuse selection. This means you have to be higher than 1000m when you release the bomb, to give it time to arm itself (after you've toggled the bombs armed on). Low level bombs have much lower requirements, but generally have much longer fuses. (High Alt explodes on contact, where low level ones might have a 8 second or 14 second delay). Pick the right bomb type for the job, or you risk unexploded ordinance, or still being in the blast radius when the bomb goes off.

Also if you are flying the Blenheim, the 88 or heinkel make sure you set a key for open bomb doors and one for close doors Once you arm the bomb you will see a light on the bomb panel of most planes light up. I have not fully worked out the salvo rate yet but i noticed in the 110 that when you arm ,you only arm one bomb at a time.So it is arm then drop, arm next bomb then drop.

Okay thanks I've figured out to arm the bombs and have played with the fuses, must be doing something wrong here though, might be using the wrong fuse for a given bomb(?), but I will follow your directions cheesehawk. Thanks guys

Okay thanks Ajay

Which plane are you learning on? We could give more specific directions with that bit of information. It's quite amazing the amount of detail that goes into each different system on all the different planes. While I'm pretty good at bombing in a 109 and 110s, and I can place bombs on target in a Stuka, I couldn't figure out how to change the delivery package in the Stuka until yesterday. The Ju-88s and He-111s are different beasts altogether, and lord knows I'm helplessly lost in the Blennie.

Yes the differing systems per plane is impressive.

I'm currently focusing on the 109 and 110

Okay, I seem to have figured it out at least in the FMB my bombs go boom. However when I went online (ATAG) it appears my bombs did not go off. I might just need to fiddle a bit more.

Of course on the ATAG server I have no way of knowing if my aircraft is even armed with bombs as there are no external views. I've been hoping to get close enough to someone and ask 'So am I well hung?'.

Is there any indicators in the cockpit that would tell me I have a bomb attached to my underbelly?