P-51D Gun Camera Opening.

[Totalize]

Okay you P-51 experts. Can anyone tell me when North American switched from a circular opening for the gun camera on the port wing to a square one?
Or was it just a difference between the Inglewood bult Mustangs versus the Dallas built ones?

 

[SaparotRob]

Okay you P-51 experts. Can anyone tell me when North American switched from a circular opening for the gun camera on the port wing to a square one?
Or was it just a difference between the Inglewood bult Mustangs versus the Dallas built ones?

I can hear the pages turning from here.

 

[Wurger]

IIRC, the changing wasn' the matter of the factory but of the gun camera type. The P-51D/K used the N-4 and N-6. And the N-6 one seems to be the reason for the square opening. The gun camera port had the circular shape on the P-51D-5-NA but on the P-51D-10-NA and later models, with the gun camera type was changed just to the square form.

 

[MIflyer]

The gun camera looked similar to this one.

 

[Totalize]

Thanks Guys.

 

[MIflyer]

And the N-6 one seems to be the reason for the square opening.

One version of the gun camera similar to the picture I posted had the lens go through a 90 degree turn and I believe that one used a square lens. This would have changed the mounting in the airplane, possibly to aid in getting the film cartridge out.

 

[MIflyer]

By the way, the other piece of equipment in the photo I posted, the item with the red caps, is an oxygen mask regulator originally used in a Canadian Sabre. That particular design was used in numerous USAAF WW2 and postwar aircraft and was copied directly from captured German Luftwaffe units. I do not think anyone has written the story of how we copied the German oxygen equipment before we got in the war.

 

[Snautzer01]

Member MiTasol made a thread of those cams

Allied camera and related equipment manuals

First is the original RAF manual (AP 1043) for the British F.24 camera which was also built in the US under licence where it was called the K-24. Later AP 1403 became AP 1355C Vol I Sec 1. Also attached are AP 1355C Vol I Sec 1 and US TO 10-10AB-1 K-24 Reconnaissance Camera Next will be AP...

ww2aircraft.net

 

[MIflyer]

Well, sure enough, here is the N6 gun camera with the rectangular right angle lens.