Author Topic: 38 armament bins  (Read 400 times)

Offline Delirium

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38 armament bins
« on: November 09, 2005, 06:45:57 AM »
While the P38 is the topic of the week...

The P38 used metal bins to store the ammunition within the nose of the plane, they had nice handles to be able to manipulate the bins into place or remove them for re-arming. It looks to me as tho the design was incredibly efficent, and here is my question.

How efficient was the design? What was the turn-over time to re-fuel and re-arm a P38? Was this design used in any other aircraft? Was the P38 the first to use such a design? Were there any drawbacks to this type of design?
Delirium
80th "Headhunters"
Retired AH Trainer (but still teach the P38 selectively)

I found an air leak in my inflatable sheep and plugged the hole! Honest!

Offline Delirium

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38 armament bins
« Reply #1 on: November 09, 2005, 11:55:21 PM »
Anyone? :cry
Delirium
80th "Headhunters"
Retired AH Trainer (but still teach the P38 selectively)

I found an air leak in my inflatable sheep and plugged the hole! Honest!

Offline Pooface

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38 armament bins
« Reply #2 on: November 10, 2005, 11:44:18 AM »
well idont quite understand what you mean by 'bins'. if you mean like a normal bucket type bin, i wonder whether or not there would be problems pulling inverted maneuvers, especially if you were rolling back and forth a lot. i imagine the ammo belts must have got tied up, or bent several times in a pilots career. and reload time i wouldn't expect to be much faster than normal, i dont know. you'd have to get guppy to help you out

Offline Delirium

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38 armament bins
« Reply #3 on: November 10, 2005, 12:45:27 PM »
I'd post pics (now that I finally have a scanner) but Picture Hanger is still down...
Delirium
80th "Headhunters"
Retired AH Trainer (but still teach the P38 selectively)

I found an air leak in my inflatable sheep and plugged the hole! Honest!

Offline Treize69

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38 armament bins
« Reply #4 on: November 10, 2005, 01:30:38 PM »
I'm looking, I have pics of what hes talking about somewhere. I'll post as soon as I can find them and get them uploaded.
Treize (pronounced 'trays')- because 'Treisprezece' is too long and even harder to pronounce.

Moartea bolșevicilor.

Offline Treize69

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38 armament bins
« Reply #5 on: November 10, 2005, 01:40:44 PM »


The silver-looking boxes in this shot of Glacier Girl were the ammo bins. Unlike most WWII fighters which had ammo belts laid out in the wings or coiled up in drums, the 38s had removable bins for the ammo- the crews took them out, loaded the ammo belts into them, reinserted them into the nose and then fed the belt into the gun. Or at least thats how understand it to work, I've been wrong before. :)
Treize (pronounced 'trays')- because 'Treisprezece' is too long and even harder to pronounce.

Moartea bolșevicilor.

Offline Karnak

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38 armament bins
« Reply #6 on: November 10, 2005, 01:43:28 PM »
I'll lok at my stuff when I get home, but I am pretty sure the .303s on fighter Mossies were in bins like that.  I'm not sure about the cannon ammo on it though.
Petals floating by,
      Drift through my woman's hand,
             As she remembers me-