Orientation of P-47 guns

Parallel to the ground.

No.

Compare them to photos.

Ground.

No.

Photos.

=20

Parallel to ground. A correction set of frontal views was printed in the = following months magazine =20

No

Compare to as many photos as you can and try and find as many references = as you can. Never, never trust the accuracy of published plans, many = have small errors and many are way off.

HTH Andy

Al,

I have to ask: Parallel to the ground at what point? Certainly not when parked on the ramp. In flight, most airplanes fly "tail low" so that might be a problem. How would one determine when the parallell orientation applies?

Ed "If an enemy power is bent on conquering you, and proposed to turn all of his resources to that end, he is at war with you; and you -- unless you contemplate surrender -- are at war with him." --Barry Goldwater

First Rule of Modelling. There are *NO* accurate plans, of anything (except maybe the Fruitbat), published anywhere.

Second Rule of Modelling. See the First Rule of Modelling.

Seriously, don't believe everything you see on paper. It is often wrong.

RobG

As an update, SAMI published a correction of the P-47 plans in the last issue, correcting the gun orientation. The reason being that within the wing, the guns are stacked at different levels to give the ammo feeds access. I've started using Peter Cookes method of using photos to determine outlines and placements. Long range telephoto shots are often the best for least distortion, and they can be scaled to a published length (another worm can). But at least you end up with the right shape and proportions. Of course, finding the right photo can be a pain, but not impossible. After collecting over 80MB's of photos off the web, the front end of my Esci

"RobbelothE" wrote

Perhaps "horizontal" is a better descriptor. The gun barrels did not follow the wing's dihedral but a plane perpendicular to the vertical center plane. I do not know the orientation of the gun plane to the water line, but it was probably parallel to the propeller axis.

KL

you can. Never, never trust the accuracy of published plans, many have small errors and many are way off.

FWIW I have learned to be very wary of anything drawn by R.A.Carauna. He is probably O.K. for Italian aircraft but when he gets on to other Nations products he tends to guess at the details. His drawings in that big paper back on the deHaviland Mosquito that SAMI publishes are a good example.

Bill Shuey

As Al well knows but some others may not, even photos can be misleading if they show restored aircraft; for example, the guns on the Chino Air Museum's widely-photographed P-47 Razorback are parallel to the wing rather than to the ground. That aircraft happens to be a G rather than a D, but the subtype isn't relevant here because all Thunderbolt guns were oriented the same way.

Charles Metz

you can. Never, never trust the accuracy of published plans, many have small errors and many are way off.

At least he seems to have the shape of the P-47's cowling right. It helped me discover just how bad the Heller kit is. BTW, thanks to Andre Van der Hoek for pointing out where the inadequacies were in that kit.

Bill Banaszak, MFE

The gunbarrels are in line with the wing when seen from the side, but are parallel to the ground when seen from the front, even if many kits place them in the centerline of the wing.

There is a very logical reason for the vertical staggering of the guns. It provides room for the ammunition feed chutes to pass over the outboard guns and reach the inboard ones. Each gun is lower by the depth of the feed chute above it as you go inboard.

Norm

How the heck did they manage to do that, Charlie??

When looking at the aircraft from dead in front of it.

Thanks for all the replies (particularily those providing better ways of describing the orientation of the guns).

Dunno; I was afraid to ask. ;-)

Charles Metz