MvR's last pull on his Spandau

BobPhil · 17 November 2009, 06:51 PM

Fellows'

Just a thought, We know that the guns on 425/17 had pull-handles to cycle and re-cycle the guns.MvR would have had no reason to reach out and forward over the cockpit to operate the gun manually-thanks Dave. In Ferko"s book " Richthofen " on page 64 is a close-up of what he states is the cock-pit of 425/17,in the photo am I seeing the pull-handle of the right gun? This photo of 425/17 was taken at Lechelle. We know that 425/17 had those pull-handles at Poulainville on April 21-22, There is dabate,ofcourse, if this photo is of 425/17 or 477/17. Would the pull-handles help to clear this debate as to which aircraft this is? As I said " just a thought " ....Bob.

Dave_Watts · 17 November 2009, 07:28 PM

Hi All,

Laser Lloyd,

Thank you for re-posting the portions of my article, it has the correct nomenclature as well as explaination.

Bob,

Great question proposed...I thought I was seeing a pull handle on the right cockpit side in that photo as well, but was hoping to hear from others. Let's see what others see. I like you Bob, you like to stir the pot!

Best,
Dave W.

Laserlloyd · 17 November 2009, 08:28 PM

I know I don't what to re-visit the Ferko's Lechelle debate but will add that I did look at that photo and the first thing that struck me was that the gun pad is a full length with that notch and the same style shows up in the the later photo. This style of gun pad is different to a lot of the other ones that I can see.

I will take another look at my photo of the cockpit and see if I can get a close up on it.

Lloyd...

John McKenzie · 18 November 2009, 01:31 PM

Hi all ,..Lloyd &Bob & Dave ,. If ? this is the same or similar to the photo as Lloyd showed on post #6 (3rd photo @ Lechelle); then I think what can be seen here is......
The RH gun seems to have showing , just below the padding , the Safty mechanism lever ,..the slanting back lower end of it . (in the non-safe pos,n );This is clear of the RH end of the padding piece.
Also the LH gun , you can see the same handle/lever , but in this case it is bent round to the right in order to clear the padding backing ?ply for its flip -up opperation .
The pull lever handles if present would be just too low and out of the picture .

Re the cut out / knotch in the padding , this is for hand access to the LH cocking lever " Ball "...(not necessary on RH side as the lever ball , as also the safty latch , is well clear of the end of the padding .).
Hand access to the ball is necessary for either the flip over , fixed cam type charging opperation and also for round (safty ) clearing opperation of This type ; ..and also this same (latter) safe clearing opperation Only ,of the "Permanently fixed in the flipped back pos'n Type - with the in-cockpit pull back charging handle " ...So the presence of the padding "Knotch " does not confirm one way or another , what type of charging mechanism these guns have , out of the two above types .
JM

Mode One · 18 November 2009, 03:35 PM

MvR's last pull on his Spandau, refers to Manfred's favorite smokes, Spandau Cigarettes, which cost 5 Pfennings a pack, back in 1918. Of course he never smoked in the cockpit, it was far to windy there. However, just before he took off on that fateful morning, he took one last pull on his Spandau and crushed it out in the butt can. German folks are very fastidious and would never flick a cigarette butt onto the lawn near the hangers! Spandaus were an interesting cigarette, they had many elongated holes in the cigarette paper, which were there for cooling.

BobPhil · 19 November 2009, 04:12 PM

Dave,

When were the machine-guns mounted on the aircraft? did they leave the factory with them installed or were they installed at Jasta level? also were the pull-handles in the box with the different locks,or again applied at Jasta as a " add-on " requested by the pilot of the aircraft?...Thanks...Bob.

Dave_Watts · 20 November 2009, 04:21 PM

Hi Bob,

The guns would have been installed at Fokker Schwerin. They would be mounted and sighted in. They would then remove the guns and place them in their respective Armorer's crate/box. The crates would be numbered and labelled to correspond to the aircraft and would follow the aircraft to the Flugpark and ultimately to the Jasta Armorer. The crates would contain, in addition to the gun with flex drive and clutch bucket, spare barrels, trigger locks, flash hiders, cross hair or V sights, tools, wrenches, etc. As mentioned before the trigger locks carry the gun number, (in reference to MvR, the photo of 1795a lock), "1795" above the italics lower case "a", above a capital letter "A". The capital letter "A" signifies this is the first lock out of at least three or four locks. The other locks would be lettered "B", "C", and if a fourth, "D". My guess is the Armorer's crate for MvR's guns would have been a very "hot" commodity after his not returning home on April 21st. I wonder who got those crates? Maybe Lothar, or if nothing was said and no one was the wiser, the Armorer may have made off with them.

In the case of MvR's guns we can see the in-cockpit pull-handles were most likely a field modification as the flip/flop decvice has been drilled and riveted in the back position for use with the in-cockpit pulls.

Best wishes,
Dave W.

BobPhil · 20 November 2009, 04:50 PM

Dave,

I was wondering if you'd be able to comment on the reply submitted by John,since he seems to know quite a bit, and I know you do too. I would be very interested to hear your input to the cock-pit close-up of NvR's aircraft photo at Lechelle...Thanks...Bob.

Laserlloyd · 25 November 2009, 08:46 AM

As I was answering a question in the Dr.I build thread I have figured out how to tell the left gun to the right gun. This all hinges a round the shell ejection chute "guide trays".
I'll walk you through how I found it.

Here is the close-up of MvR's gun's

You can see the shell ejection chute "guide trays" on one of the guns, the other gun looks like it has it missing.

I then went to this photo talking about the shell ejection chute. seen under the right feed chute.

I could see the shell ejection chute for the right gun but couldn't see it for the left one.

I then looked a this photo close-up I had a looking at the left gun there is a half rounded piece sticking out on the left side.

Now MvR's gun's again, you can see this same piece one the other gun.

So the gun on the left in the photo is the right gun and the gun on the right is the left gun.

Lloyd...

Stephan · 26 November 2009, 07:34 PM

"without operating guns,MvR broke off the chase and flew into history..."

This makes more sense than the other reasons given for why he broke off the chase, i.e. Brown chased him off, or ground fire convinced him to head back, or he was too far into enemy territory, & therefore decided to turn round & head back to his side.