Airacobra Armament

[carvaso]

I have read that Airacobra aircraft of the RAF were armed with six .303 Browning, and one 20mm Hispano guns. Were these guns manufactured in the U. S. A. or were they British / Canadian built?

 

[Greyman]

The Airacobra I had:

• one Hispano firing through the propeller hub
• two .50-calibre Brownings over the engine
• four .30-calibre Brownings in the wings (two in each wing)

I can't say 100% for certain - but I assume the Brownings were manufactured in the USA and the Hispano was British.

 

[buffnut453]

I'm not entirely sure we can say with any degree of certainty. US-built aircraft were shipped without several items of Government-Furnished Equipment to include guns, gun sights and radios. Those items would be installed at the Maintenance Unit before the aircraft was allocated to an operational squadron. Thus we're in the realm of guesswork unless we can determine the source of the guns for the MU(s) that handled the Airacobras,

 

[Denniss]

Hispanos were of British or Canadian origin, at least they were built to British specs and not to the flawed US specs.

 

[MiTasol]

Hispanos were of British or Canadian origin, at least they were built to British specs and not to the flawed US specs.

There were plenty of US manufactured Hispano's built to a BRITISH (not US) spec and British order using British manufacturing drawings but unfortunately Murphy got his hands on the project.

The "flaw" was that the Brits failed to tell the Yanks that Hispano (like most British companies) used first angle projection on all their drawings so the Yanks naturally thought they were drawn using third angle projection like in the US and many other countries. A classic communication breakdown in that the Brits did make any reference to the drawing angle anywhere in the specs and on any of the drawings.

Ever since smart companies use a simple symbol to ensure that this error is minimised.

Many of the US and British Hispano parts were completely interchangeable but the main body and feed mechanisms were not so the guns were not freely interchangeable.

There is a book that covers this in some detail - from memory Guns of the RAF

Mi