WWII 50-cal Aircraft Armament

[Brians356]

No help here...

Here's Why 'Balls To The Wall' Is Actually An Engineering Expression - Jalopnik

The expression “balls to the wall” has far less to do with male anatomy and quite possibly far more to do with the mechanical engineering genius of the steam engine.

jalopnik.com

balls to the wall - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

en.wiktionary.org

I personally go with the aviation thing.

Neither source is authoritative. My retired fighter pilot buddies will settle it to my own satisfaction.
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[rardoin]

Running “Balls Out” was a reference to steam engine centrifugal weight governors.

 

[Brians356]

Running “Balls Out” was a reference to steam engine centrifugal weight governors.

Yep, and reasonably so. And also quite distinct from "balls to the wall". Leno and others are confusing and conflating two different phrases. "Wall" is a contraction of "firewall".
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[Riesel]

If you review the segment of the video I posted he referred to "harmonizing the guns". They don't actually all converge to a point, but rather to a circular patch, or two overlapping circular patches like a "lazy 8". So in a sense it's akin to patterning a shotgun at a certain range.
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I wouldn't swear to this, but the fire control airmen adjusted the sights on the guns to coincide with bullet placement, kind of like adjusting a scope. The sights were, as I recall,
a green vertical and horizontal cross hair. I also heard that the pilots were instructed not
to run a burst more than four seconds as it would stall the fighter jet. The jet, I believe the early name was F86, and when I worked on them they were the T33 equipped with two
50 Cal guns. Just a side note, also worked on the F111. It had a bomb bay mounted Gatlin type cannon that lower and was designed for low level slow speed strafing. They would lower the landing gear to help slow the jet down until it was discovered that doing this while using the rotary cannon would shoot off the front landing gear. Big WOOPS moment.

 

[Brians356]

The jet, I believe the early name was F86, and when I worked on them they were the T33

The F-80 (Lockheed "Shooting Star", the USA's first successful jet fighter) became the T-33 in the trainer variant. It did not have swept wings, whereas the later F-86 (North American "Sabre") did.
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[Lesloan]

Anybody know what the cyclic rate of fire on aircraft .50's was? The .30 cal. rear guns on the Navy's SBD dive bombers was, from what I've read, about twice that of .30 cal. infantry guns at ~1200 rpm, and I wonder if the aircraft .50's got similar treatment.

 

[Brians356]

Anybody know what the cyclic rate of fire on aircraft .50's was? The .30 cal. rear guns on the Navy's SBD dive bombers was, from what I've read, about twice that of .30 cal. infantry guns at ~1200 rpm, and I wonder if the aircraft .50's got similar treatment.

The AN/M2 employed in WWII aircraft had a cyclic rate of 600–800 rounds per minute. So the P-47 could unleash up to 6400 rpm, but in practice probably less for reliability and endurance reasons.
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[Lesloan]

The AN/M2 employed in WWII aircraft had a cyclic rate of 600–800 rounds per minute. So the P-47 could unleash up to 6400 rpm, but in practice probably less for reliability and endurance reasons.
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Thanks! So they were somewhat faster firing than the usual 550 or so RPM.

 

[A Marsh]

I used to live a few miles from a WWII practice range. You could find lots of fired brass and links, and the occasional short belt that was from a cleared stoppage. These were from B17 practice.

 

[Brians356]

I used to live a few miles from a WWII practice range. You could find lots of fired brass and links, and the occasional short belt that was from a cleared stoppage. These were from B17 practice.

Easy to see why the stoppage, they were all rusted.

I picked up and kept some 8mm machine gun belt links stamped with the Wehrmacht eagle from an island in Oslo Fjord, at the remains of a German gun emplacement with bunkers carved out of solid rock.
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[Coyotefurharvester]

My dad told me the P51D he flew had 1880 rounds of 50 cal, didn't last long out of 6 guns. Said movies always got the dog fights wrong.