SE5a Standard Armament

On the SE5a I'm looking at some very detailed plans which include both SE5 and SE5a.

The cross section of the fuselage just forward of the Cockpit has a cuttout seems to indicate that there was a single Vickers mounted on the left.

Is this accurate for the SE5a?

[chip55]

Hello Grey
according to Aircraft Profiles #1 SE5A armament varied from one to 3 cockpit mounted Lewis machine guns.
sometimes 2 or 3 foster mounted lewis guns above the top wing center section, It varied a lot from aircraft to aircraft

Be Well

chip55

Gawh... I built a mockup of an SE5 to get the general shape a while back and am now working on a mor detailed model...

I was hoping to get what would be the most common type. All the photos I've seen showed at least a vickers sitting in front of the cockpit, or what I thought was a Vickers, with the Lewis Gun up top.

[WFS]

The standard armament of the SE5 and SE5a was a single Foster mount Lewis mg on the top wing center section and a single Vickers mg mounted in the left upper cowling. I've read of variations but I don't think they were very common. Also, of the countless photos of WWI SE5's and SE5a's that I've seen all had standard armament.

Wayne

Thanks Wayne.

I admit I was very confused to find this out about the SE5, but thanks for setting me straight

according to Aircraft Profiles #1 SE5A armament varied from one to 3 cockpit mounted Lewis machine guns.
sometimes 2 or 3 foster mounted lewis guns above the top wing center section, It varied a lot from aircraft to aircraft

This is the first I've ever heard of such a thing. So far as I'm aware, a Vickers was always part of the SE-5a's armament. The Lewis, for reasons described in other posts, was extremely hard to synchronize and therefore almost never appeared as forward-firing armament except on overwing mountings. (Pushers are the obvious exception here.)

[PeterL]

according to Aircraft Profiles #1 SE5A armament varied from one to 3 cockpit mounted Lewis machine guns.
sometimes 2 or 3 foster mounted lewis guns above the top wing center section,

Chip, the picture in the Profile is of a one off experimental three Lewis installation which was never standardised. Allmost as rare are twin Foster mounted Lewis guns, usually on home defence aircraft. You may also see occasional reference, how accurate I do not know, to a post war American built twin Vickers version. Previous discussions on this subject concluded that there isn't room in a narrow SE cockpit for much more than the one Vickers and this may have influence the choice of armament, or at least ensured its continuance once adopted.

hth

[Dan_San_Abbott]

Grey:
Peter Leonard ia correct. Only one S.E.5a was equipped with the 3 gun setup, it was B4875. There were only a few experiments with multi gun setups. Standard armament was !1 Leawis on a foster mount with two spare drums in the cockpit and 1 Vickers with 500 rounds mounted left of center. both guns were set at 5°. The S.E.5a flew in level flight, 5° nose down. It had a trimable stablizer.
Blue skies,
Dan-San

Thank you all very much.

Dan-San, I'll ask you again later when I go to place the guns exactly what level flight is in relation to the fuselage. It will also be extremely important for accurate simulation of flight.

"Trimable Stabilizer?" As in the tail fin pivoted?