whirlwind P6966 twin cannon twin mg ?

“Meanwhile, great effort was being expanded on the possibility of increasing the Whirlwind’s armament by adding three 0.303in Browning machine-guns to the four nose mounted 20mm cannon. It was also proposed that the ammunition drums be replaced by a belt-fed system. In an exercise to cover the possible failure or lack of the Hispano cannon and ammunition, a quickly replaceable 12-machine-gun “weapon egg”, complete with ammunition boxes, was designed and produced by Martin-Baker to replace the four-cannon pack. There were experimental installations of a single nose mounted cannon and a four-in-a-row configuration. These were flown in L6844 at the RAE as trial installations of a belt-feed mechanism.

Much has been said about the calibre of the single-cannon installation, “armament experts” arguing over the well-known photograph purporting to show a 40mm cannon. Penrose thought that 37mm cannon might have been installed but not necessarily flown. In fact this single weapon was a Hispano Mk II 20mm cannon with a Westland-designed pneumatically-powered ammunition feed system”.

Derek James Westland Whirlwind Database The Aeroplane May 2006

Thanks for the reference, it appears to be DN James as the source.
Westland, a history DN James p100. Armament experts cannot agree whether or not a single 40mm cannon installation was flow,But on p99 there is a photo of nose armament trials with a 20mm cannon and two 0.303 machine guns [the mg’s are alongside the cannon, in small fairings – smurf]

Derek James, presumably the same man, doesn’t mention this combination in his Putnam Westland Aircraft since 1915. He does say that the single cannon with bulged sides is the nose that was used for the four-across cannon mockup, which explains the bulges. From the description of the photo on p99 of the earlier(?) book I suspect these side bulges have been mistaken for machine gun positions. The quote however is not for 2+2 but only 1+2, surely not a serious armament combination?

James does go on to mention a suggested fit that added machine guns to the 4 cannon, which seems more in line with AM requirements.

The prototype even today, does not come close to the production aircraft.
I would imagine back in the day, as the Whirlwind was new technology, they wanted to test first the airframe.
My Question would be how much weighed “The concrete block” in the nose
My 2 cents.
Regards Duggy

Hi
something similar is mentioned here
at reply No 2
http://www.secretprojects.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,5734.0.html

and some other places i cant at the moment recall

I wondered if maybe there was a shortage of 20mm cannons or something ? and that was why it was tried ?
or maybe an idea for aiming with the mg strikes first before firing the cannon ? some sort of trials ?

cheers
jerry

This seems odd: the whole point behind the design was the four cannon, as the Air Ministry’s Holy Grail of fighter design at the time. What is the original source of this suggestion, if you can tell from various comments?

Here’s a couple of better shots of the prototype.


From the San Diego Museum Archives.

Looking at one of my reference volumes this am and found a colour photo of one of the prototypes in flight sans guns and the nose cone is identical to this.

It would appear so, possibly the prototype. Mind you they had one as s company hack as well which would not have been armed.