Can anyone ID this Altimeter?

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Crimea_River

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That is not a Sensitive Altimeter, in that it has only one hand. In the USA such instruments were mainly used on light aircraft. However in the RAF they were more common than not until shortly before the outbreak of war.

I read of a case where they were ferrying some Blenhems to Egypt before the war and had to cross France to its Med Coast while carefully avoiding Spain due to BF-109 airspace contamination problems. The pilot serving as Nav in one Blenheim misread the new two handed altimeter as a clock and tried to time their flight based on that, getting strange results before he figured out his mistake.
 
MIflyer, you are correct in saying that the Altimeter has one hand , but I fear it has been "played with" as 6A/1538 is a 3 pointer sensitive altimeter.

I believe it could be a modification ,removing 2 smaller pointers and painting the red "danger" band for recreational parachuting purposes.

This appears to be a common mod. (ie Not the only one I have seen .)Perhaps someone in the Sky Diving community could confirm or otherwise.

Regards Mike
 
Instrumentation is standardized and generally covers ranges of speeds and altitudes well in excess of the aircraft's real capabilities.

Examples: T-6 ASI: 300 MPH
F-82 ASI: 700 MPH
F-80 ASI: 700 MPH
P-63 ASI: 700 MPH
P-61 ASI: 700 MPH
P-51D ASI: 700 MPH
F4U-5 ASI: 700 MPH
A-36A ASI: 700 MPH
Martin B-26 ASI: 500 MPH

The Lancaster was one of the better RAF bombers when it came to altitude. They could usually bomb the target from 20,000 ft or even higher. Many of the other bombers' crews thought it a good night if they managed to stagger up to 10,000 ft by the time they got to the target.
 

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