Re: Red Baron Pt. 99

In article<8tngv6$ree$07$2...@news.t-online.com>, AxelP <axel.pq@t-
online.de> writes:
>>  Hmmm.  I think "armouring the propeller" might be a bit
>>  of a myth. Albert Ball's plane was a two seater, and the 
>>  NAVIGATOR fired the machine gun -- back along the line
>>  of flight.  (I expect some of them may have had extra
>>  struts so the guns could be wing-mounted).  Synchro continues 
>>  to be the pattern for the cannon on the ME109 etc, while
>>  allied planes tended to use wing-mounted.
>> 
>
>I don't think so. My source ("Reaching for the Skies", 1988 by Ivan Rendall,
>german edition) says the following (paraphrased and translated):
>
>  "What the pilots of the single seaters wanted, was a gun firing directly to
>the front, above or THROUGH [my emphasis] the propeller. The french manufacturer
>Raymond Saulnier experimented with a breaker mechanism which only fired the
>gun if the propellor was outside the line of fire. ... This was too unreliable.
>Together with the former racing pilot Roland Garros he then developed a system
>of deflection plates mounted on the propeller. ... on April 1st 1915 the system
>was first tested by Roland Garros. ... Although the system was a bit clumsy, but 
>it
>worked. ...
>  One day in July 1915 Anthony Fokker demonstrated his newly developed E1 
>monoplane
>to the german Luftwaffe. ... He had constructed a synchronization device which
>allowed the pilot to fire throught the porpeller..."

 OK, I stand corrected.  Obviously from a fighter pilot's POV he
 wants to "fly by the gunsight" i.e. pretty much shoot where 
 he looks and instinctively roll a very unstable / manoeuvrable
 plane wherever he needs in order to do so.  The ideal is a synchro,
 straight through the propeller, so he fires where he looks.

 Setting the wing-mount guns on a Spitfire to converge at 300ft
 is looking for kind of the same effect: he has to remember the
 ideal distance, then he is essentially firing where he looks.


 As other people have pointed out,  a gun fired by the rear observer
 or gun(s) mounted on the top wing of a biplane  were a common 
 substitute.
 

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