P-63 King Cobra Undercarriage Emergency Hand Crank

3air · Mar 20, 2014

This is a piece that I picked up not long ago from a local estate sale.

Amidst the chaos, I recognized what looked like a Snap On ratchet but realized it must have had a military application due to the special drive attachment and green paint.

Thanks to someone's post on another forum I was very luck to identify this by his pictures of a P-63 resto project.. Upon some further searching I checked out a website devoted to P-63 King Cobras. There I found the proper name for this piece, along with more old pictures.

Bell Aircraft was centered in my hometown of Buffalo, but I'm sure most here know far more about Bell than I ever will.

Here are some photos of the ratchet. It would have had a rotating crank handle attached. I'm not sure if that was made of wood or another material.

3air · Mar 20, 2014

A couple more photos. Note the tiny oiler on top of the ratchet head for periodic oiling.

3air · Mar 21, 2014

Here are some borrowed photos, the ones that helped me realize what this thing is:

FLYBOYJ · Mar 21, 2014

Looks like this one is the real thing. The Zinc chromate primer and the splined end is more of a give away that it's a real aircraft part.

vikingBerserker · Mar 21, 2014

Awesome find! What an ingenious thing to use.

3air · Mar 22, 2014

FLYBOYJ said:
Looks like this one is the real thing. The Zinc chromate primer and the splined end is more of a give away that it's a real aircraft part.

There's no mistaking it. I truly got lucky in being able to id it

vikingBerserker said:
Awesome find! What an ingenious thing to use.

Thanks.
Is the mechanism as simple as it looks? Spline turns gear, gear drives chain, chain lowers/raises landing gear? Or is there more to it?

vikingBerserker · Mar 22, 2014

I think that was pretty much it. A number of the early fighters like the F4F Wildcat used the same principal to raise and lower landing gear (though not sure about the use of a ratchet).

3air · Mar 23, 2014

^^Ahh. Thanks for the reply Viking.^^

MiTasol · Apr 25, 2014

3air said:
A couple more photos. Note the tiny oiler on top of the ratchet head for periodic oiling.

Could also be P39. If so handle is different - do you have a part number? would be nn-nnn-nn (later group could vary in length)

rdriscoll · Apr 28, 2014

Here is a page out of the P-63 Pilot's manual.

MiTasol · Apr 30, 2014

View attachment Pages from P-39 POH.pdf See top rh corner of this page from P-39 POH - same or similar handle

P-63 King Cobra Undercarriage Emergency Hand Crank

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