I’m building up Universal carrier Type 1 Mk 3 bomb racks for Lockheed Hudson NZ2035 at Ferrymead Heritage Park from a starting point of a collection of rack parts and therein we’ve quite a variety of different sway arms that screw into place to prevent the movement of the bombs.
Looking at various photos I see racks appear to always be made up with four arms of the same type and with the same lengths of the adjustment screws which seems a reasonable thing but don’t know if that is a rule.
From what I see I’d conclude that this makeup configures the rack for specific bomb sizes. My question is does anyone out there have any sort of manual or AP that provides insight into this or know an old armourer who can provide comment?
Thanks for any help.
By: Denys Jones - 10th July 2017 at 03:45
Brilliant stuff James
That clarifies one matter in that the racks have different levers (must get used to that term rather than calling them sway arms as I was) front and rear as per images 3 and 4 above and not the same both ends as I’d assumed based on one of our complete original racks being so configured.
Having longer levers at the front makes sense given the taper of the bomb nose.
That still leaves a wee query in that the adjusting screws come in two different lengths. The longer one is as per the manual page with the knurled knob at the end away from the bulb whereas the shorter has it fixed at that end. Here’s one of the arms I’ve just cleaned up and it in fact shows a different type of quick release pin arrangement but as it’s more fiddly than the manual one it’s probably been superseded by that in the manual. We’ve got both types of these. Perhaps the different screw lengths are again a later simplification.
Thanks again I’ll trawl about and see if the AP is online anywhere as a download.
By: QldSpitty - 9th July 2017 at 23:51
This the same?[ATTACH=CONFIG]254630[/ATTACH][ATTACH=CONFIG]254631[/ATTACH]
By: jamesinnewcastl - 9th July 2017 at 23:47
And some more pages:
By: Whitley_Project - 9th July 2017 at 23:47
Can you post some pictures of the parts you have Denys? There are two main types of LSBC.
By: jamesinnewcastl - 9th July 2017 at 23:43
Hi
A.P. 1664 Vol 1 is entitled Bomb Carriers, I’ve attached photos from a July 1939 version that had been updated all the way to 1949, so quite what the exact date is for each image may vary! I’ve copied the whole chapter on the Universal Carrier.
The A.P.s changed with each release so some have more/less than others so may be worthwhile getting other copies dated differently.
Apologies for the sightly fuzzy nature of the images but I was taking pics at about 1 page every couple of seconds and I may have to re-size them to the forum limits. If you want the full AP send me a PM and I’ll send them to you. Hope they are of some use!
Cheers
James
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July 9, 2017 at 10:55 pm