Warbird Information Exchange

I was recently looking over my airshow pics and noticed something. At many airshows you will see sometimes several P-51s with the gun doors open but I've never seen a P-40 with the door open. I just googled it and the only picture I found was one on the Pacific Wreck site. That got me to wondering do any of the P-40s flying around have fully restored gun bays? If so, why is it so hard to find pictures? Or is it that they are hard to access?

Also since we're talking guns here, another one that has been making me scratch my head is why doesn't the P-47 Tallahassee Lassie have guns?

The P-40 gun bays are on the bottom of the wing so even open it's hard to see the guns. The amo bays are on top but are really annoying to open because they use hinge pin. Know matter how careful you are with the hinge pin you always chip the paint a little somewhere.

Brandon

Well, they're uncommon it's true, but the only WWII fighter that regularly fires machine guns at airshows is ZK-CAG, in NZ.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oO3gE7VA0Hs

Dave

The Tallahassee Lassie has 8 count them 8 50 cal, 4 in each wing.

That had me scratching my head, as P-40s never had more than six wing guns. I looked up "Tallahassee Lassie" and she's a P-47, which indeed has eight. Do you know if her gun bays are fully-equipped?

SN

I know P-47s have the 8 guns but don't the barrels hang out in front of the wing? All the pics of Tallahassee Lassie that I've seen show no barrels protruding from the leading edge, do they not stick out on all models of the P-47? And the P-40s gun bay being on the bottom makes sense as to why you just don't see them open. Thanks for all the replies

I think they continued restoring this P-47 after they got it flying. All the early photos showed no guns, but I believe the more recent ones as I recall now show it with the 8 guns sticking out of the leading edge.

i always wondered why the 47's gun barrels were staggered in their length in each wing, after all they were all the same 50's.

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tom d. friedman - hey!!! those fokkers were messerschmitts!! * without ammunition, the usaf would be just another flying club!!! * better to have piece of mind than piece of tail!!

Tht

The guns themselves are staggered to allow the direct feed of the ammunition belts....

Yep, the barrels are all the same length..it was the guns themselves that were staggered. Here's a pic from the Duxford homepage showing the installation (I'm assuming during Snafu's rebuild.)

SN

Anorak alert!

Looks like those are AN/M3s (generally used postwar with a higher rate of fire- standardized in April of 1945) rather than AN/M2s. You can tell by the larger diameter buffer in the receiver back plate. Not sure if that is a correct gun for this aircraft.

Agreed.

Can anybody explain why the P-47 has a tube surrounding the cooling jacket, rather than having just the jacket stick through the leading edge? Thanks.

I believe it's to prevent 'overcooling' . The barrel rides in a plain bearing in the cooling jacket and recoils a fair distance when fired. if the grease freezes up the gun can't be charged, or becomes a single shot if there was a round in the chamber already. Not as much an issue in flexible and turret guns where you can get to it.

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Lest Hero-worship raise it's head and cloud our vision, remember that World War II was fought and won by the same sort of twenty-something punks we wouldn't let our daughters date.

On the subject of P-40 gun bays, all three of the P-40's restored by Fagen Fighters/Warhawks Inc. (which you should be familiar with) have fully out-fitted gun bays (150+ individual parts per gun bay). Here's a photo of one of the gun bays on Fagen Fighters' first P-40K restoration (now owned by the Texas Flying Legends Museum).

Photo by Greg Morehead. Photo found here (and originally published in Warbirds Digest issue #10): http://www.courtesyaircraft.com/Current ... 0Specs.htm

I am very familiar with Fagan Fighters, and I try to get out there every chance I get, but they are always buttoned up and now I see why. I'm glad to see that its not a case of oh well, no one will see then anyway so we don't need to include these parts. The only pics I could find were grainy black and white close ups of the gun bay that didn't show any reference, so i wasn't aware that they are on the bottom. Thanks for all the replies!!