Of course, I should have remembered that – although the name is technically the Museum of Science and Industry (web: http://www.msim.org.uk/ ). The Air and Space Hall is definitely worth a visit.

TW

BTW: who are “mfrs”? Why would they know about these things?Can you tell me more about mfrs? Please.

Manufacturers, I presume.

Tony Williams: Military gun and ammunition website and discussion forum

the Sparrow II of the late 1950s was IMO a real “out there” project for its time. it was to incorporate an active radar seeker!! in other words, give AMRAAM capabilities (fire-and-forget BVR) when AMRAAM itself was 35 years away. obviously it was a very ambitious program and, well, failed because it was simply impossible for the tech of the time.

The British Red Dean was also an active-radar AAM developed in the 1950s, but it was a huge beast. One still survives at the Cosford museum IIRC.

See: http://www.skomer.u-net.com/projects/reddean.htm for pics and a brief history.

Tony Williams: Military gun and ammunition website and discussion forum

I always find it strange that as individuals and more especially from a governmental level we are dissuaded at every opportunity from dealing with the big questions. What is life all about after all? Why do we find talking about this subject so difficult and why are people so quick to try and put these discussions down?

From the government’s pov, there’s no advantage in promoting the idea because there’s nothing they could do about it and it would just scare people. From the individual viewpoint, the subject attracts the lunatic fringe of true believers so there’s the risk of being tarred with the same brush if you appear to take it seriously.

I recall once reading of a US conference of scientists (astronomers IIRC) who were enjoying a reception in a hall one night when one of them strolled outside and saw strange lights whizzing about the sky. He went back in and announced what was going on to the assembled throng, who all looked embarrassed and declined to go and see for themselves – appearing to take it seriously would have meant professional ridicule.

FWIW I think that the vast majority of UFO sightings are explicable in terms of everyday factors, a small percentage is not. The explanation for those IMO almost certainly rests in some natural phenomena which are not yet understood.

I once saw a TV programme on UFOs which included some cine film taken by a passenger on an airliner who had filmed the view from his window. This appeared to show a solid, dark-coloured object approaching the plane at immense speed, before vanishing again with equal speed. The film was very convincing and I was impressed – I could think of no natural explanation for it and the cameraman appeared to be honest. So the TV investigators sent someone with this guy’s camera to sit in the same seat of the same aeroplane on the same flight to do some filming. Lo and behold, he saw the same thing. It turned out that the bevelled edge of the window caused an optical distortion which, if you held the camera in exactly the right position, made a part of the tailplane seem detached from the rest, as if it were a separate solid object. It could be made to appear or disappear just by moving the camera a fraction. Case solved, and a neat example of why you shouldn’t always believe the evidence of your own eyes!

Tony Williams: Military gun and ammunition website and discussion forum

I don’t like the idea of the external gunpod waste a of hardpoint that could be used for other more useful stores. Since the provisions for 2 internal guns still exist why not fit the DEFA or earlier ADEN instead ?

Or the 27mm Mauser, which is much the same size as the Aden 25.

Tony Williams: Military gun and ammunition website and discussion forum

I have a question about the Hawk 200. It was originally designed to carry two 25mm Aden revolver cannon internally. However, when this gun (also intended for the Harrier GR.5) was cancelled, the plane reappeared with the usual single 30mm Aden in the underfuselage pod (clearly shown in the third pic).

BUT – the 5th pic in the series above shows a plane without the gunpod, but with what seem to be apertures for gun muzzles on either side of the bottom of the nose, just behind the radar.

So my question is: were any Mk 200 sold with the twin-gun setup? If so, are they still in use?

Tony Williams: Military gun and ammunition website and discussion forum

Radials were particularly suited to air-cooling since they all presented their cylinders directly to the airstream (this became decreasingly true later with multi-bank radials).

With inline engines, however, the cylinders at the back were shielded from the cooling airstream by the ones at the front, so air-cooled inlines were difficult to keep cool, especially as they became bigger and more powerful. So liquid-cooling was essential for the Merlins etc of this world, but an unnecessary complication for the radials. The radials lost some efficiency through being air-cooled, but it was worth it to gain the greater robustness and damage-tolerance from doing without the cooling system.

Tony Williams: Military gun and ammunition website and discussion forum

were’t they all recocked with exhuast (ie the guns not the aeroplane’s) and so dependent on the mechanics of each gun?

Sort of. The HS 404 was technically a ‘gas-unlocked blowback’. As each shot was fired, some of the expanding gas pushing the shell up the barrel was tapped off to unlock the steel flaps which held the bolt firmly against the back of the chamber. The remaining gas pressure in the barrel then blew out the fired case backwards, and compressed a recoil spring behind the bolt (the action was cocked at the same time). The recoil spring then pushed the bolt forwards, sliding a fresh round from the magazine into the chamber.

The recoil was such that the gun was allowed to move back about 25mm in its mounting to ease the ‘kick’. This movement was later used to drive the belt-feed mechanism; it tensioned a spring which in turned pulled the belt. To make sure that there was enough recoil to do this job, the slotted ‘recoil reducer’ (muzzle brake) which was fitted to the muzzle of the wing-mounted magazine-fed guns was removed.

Tony Williams: Military gun and ammunition website and discussion forum