Warbird Information Exchange

Can someone explain to me how the rear gun was retracted and stowed away? Im looking at the USAF T.O. AN 01-60FF-4 illustration on page 96 of Dan Hagedorn's book "North American's T-6" and it appears the barrel would be ok outside of the airplane but not go directly down to stow. Did one have to run it to one side of the track and then swivel the gun to fit? Or did the track actually tilt back towards the front of the aircraft?

Also did the track, at the middle(furthest point away from the gunner) actually touch the bulkhead or was it a bit shy? Seems I saw a pic of a mount to the bulkhead to keep the track fixed on this site somewhere.

One more thing, sorry, how high did the gun sit above where the rear canopy sat when installed. What did they do with the rear canopy, completely remove it or could it be removed and replaced in flight; I dont see where they would stow it if they could.

Thanks for helping with what Im sure are elementary questions to you fine folks.
I posted this in Military section as well, sorry for double post.

Aaron

The rear most canopy piece was connected to the main rear sliding canopy. When the rear canopy was slid forward the rear most piece would also pivot while going over your head. This would leave you with no canopy in your vision from left to rear to right as you faced aft.
The rear seat would pivot so you would face aft. The rear control stick is removable so it would have been stowed before take off.
There is 2 doors that cover an opening in the upper skin of the fuselage aft of where the rear canopy section that was moved fwd. These were spring loaded IIRC and you would open them and rotate the turret upward to release the gun.
I have never worked on a T-6/SNJ with the gun installed but the POF SNJ had the rear canopy setup workable as it made a great photo platform to be able to shoot from.

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I am certainly no AT-6 expert but I'll try to answer your questions.

I have seen the rear gun installed with or without the rear turtle deck fairing as pictured below. Without the fairing it would be easy to drop the gun into the slot and stow it. There was a phenolic block that had a half round cut out for the cooling jacket. With the turtle deck fairing stowing the gun was another story.

The socket that accepts the gun cradle post can rotate 90 degrees to stow the gun. You can see the knurled knob to do this in the photos below. You would pull the knob and lower the gun into the stowed position. With the fairing I would surmise that you would have to swing the gun to one side of the ring and point the muzzle under the fairing.

The ring itself was bolted and fixed. It did not move at all. The forward ends of the ring was bolted to castings that were clamped to the tubular. The rear most part of the ring has an L shaped bracket to mount it to a channel on the top of the deck.









I hope this helps,

Taigh

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Thanks guys that helps a lot!

Aaron