This is a silent compilation of ordinance and drop tank/whatnot separation tests---some of it is lousy video, none of it has sound---and a lot of it is silently terrifying.

Apparently, it's a lot harder to get things to fall off of airplanes that one would think.

In looking into it more, it seems to be the case that aerodynamic airflows at high speed, particular the special and sought after sort of airflow (that designers strive for) called "laminar flow", can cause all sorts of problems (thus, the engineering/science tags).

In the American B1-B bomber, flight testing apparently established that released bombs from the internal bomb bay would get caught up in the laminar flow along the bottom of the aircraft and "bump" and bobble along the underside of the fuselage until they spun off the tail section (nerve wracking much?). They had to add a "waffle iron" grid inside the bay that extends down into the airstream and disrupts it before release to get that to stop .

Although aircraft use "explosive" or "pyrotechnic" charges to get a positive release from an aircraft's pylons (no hydraulics, no need for electric power to a pylon), I now understand that the charge doesn't actually "blow" the object from the airplane...It just ensures the release.