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Aviation History
1934
1934 - 0638.PDF
A description of the weapons used in Service Aircraft with a concise history of their Development By H. F. KING. I~TN 1912, Mr. Handley Page, now one of our fore-most constructors of civil and military aircraft,L wrote to FLIGHT on the subject of the British Military Trials, held that year to find an aero- plane suited to military requirements. He said: "It is well that provision for auxiliary apparatus such as wireless, guns, etc., have been left out. . . . Time enough for these details when aeronautical work has advanced further forward." This remark demonstrates admirably how much in its infancy was aircraft armament at the outbreak of war. Development during the ensuing four or five years produced efficient machine guns, bombs for a variety of purposes, and torpedoes, with sights, mountings and other equipment necessary for their efficient employment in aircraft. This com- paratively rapid growth is somewhat confusing, and, since the war, the subject of aircraft armament has been regarded as being too " hush hush " and tech- nical in character for study by the majority of people outside official circles. We will try to give, there- fore, some insight into development and modern practice in the arming of aircraft. Fixed Guns Aircraft guns are of two classes, fixed and free. The fixed type is essentially a pilot's weapon, and may be denned as a gun rigidly attached to the structure of an aircraft and trained by manoeuvring the machine to which it is fitted. To-day it is used on all Service aircraft, except the large multi-engined types, for aerial combat or for attacking objects on the ground. Before the introduction of synchronising gear, which allows guns to be fired through the airscrew arc without damage, Lewis guns were mounted on the sides of certain war-time tractor aircraft, notably the B.E. series. These guns pointed out at an angle to the line of flight in order that their bullets might clear the airscrew. This meant that the pilot had to manoeuvre his machine in one direction and fire in another. Garros, the French " Ace," and one or two other war-time pilots, used machine guns which fired straight through the airscrew arc with no form of interrupter gear whatever. A certain percentage of the bullets hit the air- screw but were deflected by steel plates fixed to the blades. Lewis guns were often fitted to mountings over the top plane, firing above the airscrew. As early as 1915, Vickers were experimenting with mechanical interrupter gear which allowed a machine gun to be fired through the airscrew arc without any of the bullets hitting the airscrew, and during the following year some Bristol single-seaters were sent to France fitted with this mechanism. Several other makes were tried, but it was not until 1917 that our synchronising gear was superior to that of the enemy. We owe our ultimate superiority to M. Georges Constantinesco, a Rumanian, who had experi- mented with the transmission of power by waves. He was assisted in developing his gun gear, the modern version of which is shown in our drawing, by some British officers, who also deserve much credit. The first demon- stration of Constantinesco synchronising gear was given in August, 1916, on a B.E. aeroplane, and thereafter the gear was fitted to Allied aircraft as quickly as possible. The Vickers Gun In the ordinary " land " type of Vickers gun, firing is automatic, but for operation by synchronising gear the firing mechanism is removed and the gun is fired by pressing a trigger on the pilot's control column through pulsations of oil in a system of pipes, in such a manner that no blade of the airscrew is hit by bullets. Constan- tinesco gear, in a modified form, is standard equipment in the R.A.F. to-day. The Vickers guns used on aircraft during the war, being mere modifications of " land " type guns, were fitted with " speeding-up conversion- sets " which increased the rate of fire from about 500 rounds per minute to nearer 900, and made the functioning of the gun at high altitudes more certain. A " disintegrating link " belli was adopted to carry the ammunition. This type of belt is composed of articulated metal links connected by the cartridges themselves. As the cartridges are fired the cases and links are separately ejected down small chutes. Electrical gun heaters were introduced to prevent the lubricant in the gun from becoming so viscous as to impede proper working. The Vickers guns used in the R.A.F. to-day are modified versions of the Vickers Class " E " pattern. Without going into mechanical details, the Vickers gun, which is classed as a " barrel recoiling " type, consists of three main parts—the non-recoiling parts, the feed mechanism (which may be classified with the former) and the recoil- ing parts. It is operated automatically by two forces— the explosion of the charge, which forces the recoiling parts backwards, and a strong spiral spring which carries them forward. After a round is fired the empty case is extracted and ejected, a live cartridge is placed in position and a fresh round is brought into the feed block. The 638
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