Test of MG in British aeroplanes

[rammjaeger]

The "Illustrierte Neueste" - an illustrated weekly news magazine of Dresden - remarked on 13th December 1913 that the Brits made successful tests with MG in Aldershot. A photograph was added in the paper showing a biplane with the pilot sitting above the gunner. The gunner is using a water-cooled (?) weapon with drum magazine and has a very limited field for his fire (only downward).

What is known about the early British tests of machine guns in aeroplanes? I think the tests were not so successful as described because the British fliers started the war without MG.

When did British airmen start to use MG in the war?

Which British aircraft was fitted at first with MG?

When did the first British aircrew score a victory with a MG?

VBR

Hannes

The aircraft sounds like the Grahame-White Boxkite which had a cradle fitted below the pilot and forward of the lower wing. This had a Lewis machine gun fitted.

It would appear that the first mg tests were carried out in June 1912 by an FE2 armed with a Vickers mg.

Also during 1912 the navy equiped a Short S41 with a machine gun in the observers cockpit.

Louis Strange describes attacking a German aircraft from a Farman equiped with a Lewis on 22 AUGUST 1914. the navy also had mg equiped aircraft in 1914.

andy

[Vigilant]

Actually fitting the MG was fairly easy. What was harder in 1914 was making the plane climb above 1000 feet whilst carrying it!

The British Admiralty first contracted for a machine-gun carrying aircraft in November 1912. The manufacturer was Vickers; the machine was the No. 18, which appeared the following year at the Olympia Aero Show as the "Destroyer." This first machine was wrecked in a crash, but the followup variant was the direct ancestor of the F.B. 5 "Gunbus." All of these machines were armed with a belt-fed Vickers.

Incidentally, what appears to be a water jacket in the photo referred to is in fact the cover installed on the Lewis LMG to protect the cooling fins on the barrel.

[rammjaeger]

Many thanks for the help!

I am only woundering how easy a paper of a potential enemy could get info about these tests!

Hannes