I have one if these gunsights in my collection. They're very complicated and finely engineered instruments. The gnurled ring mentioned has set, marked, graduations to set the sight for the wingspans of the FW190, He.111 and Ju88 as well as the Me109. My gunsight is still fully operational and works beautifully! Another WWII gunsight I have is from a rocket-firing Typhoon, complete with the rocket sight "drop" compensator. It too works! 👍
emaxx hidalgo: Just remember they can be quite expensive, as the really good ones sell for around $4000.00. But some models can be found for about $500.00. Remember too that there were gun turrets in bombers and these gunsights can be bought from upwards of $40. Just do an internet search using "aircraft gunsight" or "gunsight head" etc. Also as most people haven't a clue of how to describe such items break up the word "gunsight" into two "gun sight", and even hyphenated it. Ok? There are also many sellers under the search "aviation parts" or "aircraft parts" or vintage aviation. The trick is to try to be creative in your searches to find that site amonst hundreds which has what you want. I've seen aircraft gunsights from WWII, Korean War, Vietnam and up to 1970's jet-era for sale. For starters ALWAYS check on Ebay first before going to such dedicated sites as: spitfirespares.co.uk/home.html www.raf-surplus.co.uk/spitfire-parts.php www.aerovintagespares.com www.texasairsalvage.com And don't forget that you can also make a great aviation themed room just by decking one out with a few cockpit seats, and mounting on the wall bits and pieces like propellers, wingtips, control yokes, tail wheel assemblies, "Remove before flight" streamers etc etc. Have fun collecting!!
The lead computing gunsight at the end of this video was an incredible help because most pilots shot like pigs. According to several aces. We owe it to the British. These analog devices were very clever and they are very interesting to study.
I just cannot comprehend how kids were put into these beatuful machines with 0 skills whatsoever and were only taught basic shit while mastering both flying and shooting had to been done on their own in a freakin combat! This is something out of this world
It would take more than 60 years to get optical sights like these to mount on firearms. The red dot sights and holographic sights finally saw widespread usage during the 2003 Invasion of Iraq.
Like a good shot at trap, you’ve got it, or you don’t. Close in on six shoot when it fills your windscreen. Only good shots got in deflecting shots. Close range debris could ruin your prop and your day.
Very interesting video but it seems like the pilots were sent up with a handful of gravel. Fancy trying to bring down another plane of equal size with what was an infantry round let alone a bomber, they had a much tougher task than most of us realise. I bet they rejoiced when they got some proper firepower. Brave men one and all.
480 rounds in a 3 second burst. 8 shots per square foot. WTF are you getting at. There are a lot of square feet when you divide 480/8. like 60 sq ft. Some of the pictures of German bombers shot down look like they where hit by hundreds of puny .303 bullets.
@Dave: "8 shots per square foot" That spread pattern is before the guns are harmonised. Early in the BoB guns were set to converge at about 400 yards.Combat experience soon taught pilots that it was far more effective to get in closer and to set the guns to a more concentrated cone at 250 yds. More experienced pilots would set their their guns converge even closer for maximum impact - sometimes 120 yds. especially in night fighter operations where the main tactic was stealth and maneuvering very close before firing. www.revolvy.com/topic/Gun%20harmonization&item_type=topic
You forget that a lot of the targets at the time were made of wood and cloth, and the ones that weren't were still pretty fragile. You also have to factor in combat speeds. A slower aircraft is easier to hit, and therefore would catch more of the burst. Once aircraft start getting faster and more durable, you see almost everybody mounting cannons to do maximum damage in as few shots as they can.
I know this video is part of a full length documentary, and It's available on RU-vid. Can anyone give me the link to it? It seems like I can't search of that video anymore. Thank you.
Did he say at 1:25 that the "8-gun Spitfire would fire about 480 rounds in a typical 3-second burst"? That's 160 rounds per second.....a modern minigun shoots at 3,000 RPM, which translates to only 60 rounds per second. So, they're saying the Spitfire would fire 2.6X faster than a modern minigun. Am I the only one who was conflicted by that remark? I know it's 8 guns versus 1 rotary machine gun, but that doesn't seem realistic to me, given the times. I dunno...someone explain?
The minigun can run 6000 rpm, however barrel life suffers. Since it is mostly used for antipersonnel, and not anti aircaftthey turn it down to between 3000-4200 rpm
So if you work it out each barrel fires about 100/sec on high, the brownings had 2 extra barrels, a minigun is 89#, and the browning .303 41# each so much lighter, more ammo for same gun system weight
.303 machine gun in aircraft trim has a rate of fire of 900-1200rpm, therefore combined delivers 7400 - 9600rpm or 120 - 160rps which could deliver the 480 rounds in a 3 second burst.
jose arevalos: The small triangular insignia on the side of the cockpit near the canopy indicates that the pilot of that aitcraft was the Squadron Leader. A similar insignia in the shape of a rectangle indicated a Wing Leader's rank. The colours and style of these insignia were taken directly from the rings of rank worn on their uniform sleeves. Also, Wing Leaders and above were allowed to have their initials - or any letters they wanted - painted on the side of their particular aircraft, instead of the Squadrons codes. For example: "JE- J" for Johnny Johnson's Mk.IX Spitfire, "D-B" for Douglas Bader's Mk.Va Spitfire and "Z-Z" for Denys Gillam's Typhoon Ib. 👍
I am no expert on second world war aircraft fighter planes, why could not have a flak bomb system at the tail to destroy a plane in pursuit.. I would like to know about the Foo fighters of witch a lot of pilots reported...
brian critchley or possibly something like there's no way to overcome the other issue because you can't load enough explosive and shrapnel or a big enough shell to do the job without impairing the plane
emaxx hidalgo "Idle Onlooker" wrote a comment above. In one of the 5 replies to the comment, is an explanation of how/where to get one of these sights and related info.
In 1940 no fighter use predictor gunsights. But latter in war Spitfire receive a gyroscopic predictor gunsight - like P-51, Bf 109 K... Later models of Spitfire use the MK.IID gyroscopic gunsight: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-DREz7qI8xRk.html
Many RAF planes did infact have gyroscopic predictor sights : Supermarine Attacker, Supermarine Seafang, Supermarine Spiteful, Supermarine Spitfire Hawker Hurricane, Hawker Tempest, Hawker Typhoon After tests with two experimental gyro gunsights which had begun in 1939, the first production gyro gunsight was the British Mark I Gyro Sight in 1941 In October 1942 they had successfully combined the image from the radar tube with a projection from their standard GGS Mk. II gyro gunsight on a flat area of the windscreen, and later in the gunsight itself. A key upgrade was the move from the original AI Mk. IV radar to the microwave-frequency AI Mk. VIII radar found on the de Havilland Mosquito night fighter. This set produced an artificial horizon that further eased head-up The radar-aimed AGLT Village Inn tail turret incorporated a Mark II Gyro Sight and this turret was fitted to some Lancaster bombers towards the end of World War II. With that said Many pliots got in close and would spray down it's enemy's Rather then shoot far off and only getting a few hits and letting the enemy know there attacking
