Warbirds firing cannons at airshows.

Yikes, I was once at a Mildenhall airshow and the crew of an AC-130 were handing out used 40mm cases for free, I still have two on a shelf, one I polished the other is as given (dull metal with AC-130H written on it by a crew member).

They don’t appear to firing fast enough for Browning M2AC guns, but then again, blanks may not give the same cyclic rate anyway. They would however need a blank fire device on the end of the barrel shroud as there isn’t a booster fitted to the M2AC.

The guns had to be modified to fire blanks..They were selling the fired spent cartridges for $20 a pop…

Mike J, I meant Anon Mike, I know a P-40 was equipped with .50s.

Mike D, I saw that entry, if you look up the Heavy Machine Gun entry is gives the cut off for HMGs as a very odd 15.24mm

I think there is no hard-and-fast rule as to what constitutes a ‘cannon’.

It isn’t explosive ammunition; as this has been available since the First World War for 303-calibre machine-guns on British aircraft.

The truth is that rifle-calibre (30-calibre / 303-calibre / 7.62mm / 7.92mm) machine-guns are smaller than heavy machine-guns (50-calibre / 12.7mm / 14.5mm / 15mm) and at some point after that the weapons are referred to as cannon (20mm / 23mm / 27mm / 30mm / 35mm)…

…off the top-of-my-head I cannot think of any weapon between 15mm and 20mm; anybody?

I always thought a “cannon” in this instance was a slower-firing, heavier projectile weapon than a machine-gun?

Big round iron balls were fired from cannons….

I didn’t feel the need to point that out, this being an aviation forum! :rolleyes:

Not cannons, but I remember seeing “Sally B” firing her waist 50’s during passes at the “Great Warbirds” show held shortly after the filimimg of “Memphis Belle”, not sure if that would be possible today as the gun laws have changed since then.
Apparently they still had unused blanks left over from the filming.
They were surprised at the amount of vibration it sent through the airframe when they were fired

I remember that as well :eagerness:

But they weren’t technically ‘Sally B’s’ guns as they were live .50’s fitted for the filming by Bapty’s the film armourers. Some years later I go to socially know one of the Bapty’s guys that worked on the film.

Alan, I can’t recall where I had heard that a cannon was 20mm or over in bore size, however, this is from Googling “Cannon”, on Wikipedia:

‘While there is no minimum bore for autocannon, they are generally larger than machine guns, typically 20 mm or greater since World War II and are usually capable of using explosive ammunition even if it isn’t always used. Machine guns in contrast are usually too small to use explosive ammunition.’

Anon.

Apparently the best thing to rot your spars on a wing mounted with guns is cordite smoke.

Mike

I thought cannons were 15mm (online there is reference to 15.24mm) and above, in the UK that means 20mm because there was never anything intermediate between a .50 and 20mm but in some places there were guns in between, that said I don’t know of anything in the 15-20mm range only the 14.5mm HMG produced in Russia.

P-40s were armed with .50 calibre (12.7mm) machine guns.

Big round iron balls were fired from cannons….

Surely to qualify as a cannon, it has to fire an explosive projectile.

Mike

I thought cannons were 15mm (online there is reference to 15.24mm) and above, in the UK that means 20mm because there was never anything intermediate between a .50 and 20mm but in some places there were guns in between, that said I don’t know of anything in the 15-20mm range only the 14.5mm HMG produced in Russia.

In the fifties at Biggin Hill at Home days, you could pay half a crown (12.5p) to sit in a Meteor cockpit and let loose with the Hispanos. There must have been some sort of bullet stop but if that had failed, as some have been known to, the shells would have crossed the main road separating the married quarters garages and Sergeants and Officers messes from the main camp.

After Farnborough had rebuilt an Se5A, it was flown during the SBAC show, and fired its gun(s?) with the bullets going into a sandpit in front of the bigwigs’ tent.

D7000 it was (falsely) serialled. (Actually F904/G-EBIA) The year was 1959.The commentator said that the gun was the one actually used by Mannock. Was that true?
I’ve got a mental block at the moment and can’t recall the commentator’s name (on the tip of my tongue! – Major Oliver???) but he himself was an ex- RFC man.
Jim

After Farnborough had rebuilt an Se5A, it was flown during the SBAC show, and fired its gun(s?) with the bullets going into a sandpit in front of the bigwigs’ tent.

Only 20mm and above qualify as cannon.

I’ve posted this link before but it’s worth a re-visit – four “twenties” letting loose:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oc9E8_ZuESQ

Now imagine that up yer chuff stuck in front of a Spit, Mossie, Tempest, Meteor Sea Hawk, etc, etc. No wonder they standardised on the big stuff for sheer hitting power.

Anon.

There are no Triplanes that I know of in the UK with propane guns??

Really? Oh. ******. I thought there was one!

I believe most of those pseudo machine guns are propane-powered and aren’t guns at all. This is technology that was well-developed by Hollywood during the pre-CGI era. Perhaps the Kiwi P-40 is an exception, dunno.

Definately an exception, and one very unlikely to be repeated. Many NZ control laws are about importing weapons, so you would not be able to bring in any new examples. If people are wondering about the TVAL WW1 replicas (that may be flying in the UK this season), they (and also e.g. the Yagan/AvSpecs Mosquito) have inert resin weapons. There is a page about them on the TVAL website.

Fitting them into a warbird would be an issue…. but not on a WW1 replica. I believe a recently-built Triplane in the UK has propane Spandaus….?

There are no Triplanes that I know of in the UK with propane guns??