i read very little of this technical history but have been listening to a lecture series about world war one and they were talking about the problem of mounted machine guns shooting through propellers so i sought out more information. that always seemed problematic when watching aerial combat in war movies but they pretty quickly overcame it in reality. hard to believe they could synchronize the guns and propellers at those speeds. who knew? science! (and killing machines!)
Haven't googled yet, but wasn't the Focker first at this?
Nope, not the first. And it's spelled Fokker. Pretty interesting though, I agree. Good article.
the lecturer focused on fokker. maybe he wasnt first but his was the standard early on for the germans.
We had a print of one in our kitchen when I was growing up (not sure why) and I was fascinated when my Dad explained how the gun fired.
no parachutes for the allies in ww1 though germany adopted them. wouldnt want to lose a plane with the possibility they could be salvaged, or be given the option to jump if you lost your nerve. i suppose you could (possibly) reveal plans as well were you captured. plus, nothing says manly like dying in a fiery heap. at one point because of the fokker upgrade british airmen averaged 18 hours of flight time before death if i read that correctly. 14000 british pilots died in the war. i think 50000 died across europe and beyond.
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i read very little of this technical history but have been listening to a lecture series about world war one and they were talking about the problem of mounted machine guns shooting through propellers so i sought out more information. that always seemed problematic when watching aerial combat in war movies but they pretty quickly overcame it in reality. hard to believe they could synchronize the guns and propellers at those speeds. who knew? science! (and killing machines!)
- dave 12-14-2013 3:04 pm
Haven't googled yet, but wasn't the Focker first at this?
- jim 12-14-2013 3:07 pm [add a comment]
Nope, not the first. And it's spelled Fokker. Pretty interesting though, I agree. Good article.
- jim 12-14-2013 3:08 pm [add a comment]
the lecturer focused on fokker. maybe he wasnt first but his was the standard early on for the germans.
- dave 12-14-2013 3:24 pm [add a comment]
We had a print of one in our kitchen when I was growing up (not sure why) and I was fascinated when my Dad explained how the gun fired.
- jim 12-14-2013 4:50 pm [add a comment]
no parachutes for the allies in ww1 though germany adopted them. wouldnt want to lose a plane with the possibility they could be salvaged, or be given the option to jump if you lost your nerve. i suppose you could (possibly) reveal plans as well were you captured. plus, nothing says manly like dying in a fiery heap. at one point because of the fokker upgrade british airmen averaged 18 hours of flight time before death if i read that correctly. 14000 british pilots died in the war. i think 50000 died across europe and beyond.
- dave 12-14-2013 7:58 pm [add a comment]