SBD Dauntless cockpit

[paradisca1]

I have never found a reference to the circled items either side of the floating instrument panel. They are the aluminum appearing levers and the rectangular boxes with cylindrical projections. Can anyone please explain?

Steve P.

 

[Wurger]

The aluminium parts are the levers for the manual reloading of the pilot's machine guns. The rectangular boxes with cylindrical projections are rear ends of the guns.

the pic source: Les avions de J-P

 

[fubar57]

 

[MIflyer]

That was a common design feature for cowl mounted guns in that time frame. The Zero had the same thing.

 

[Witold Jaworski]

I have never found a reference to the circled items either side of the floating instrument panel. They are the aluminum appearing levers and the rectangular boxes with cylindrical projections. Can anyone please explain?

View attachment 568276

Steve P.

These are rear ends of fixed Browning 0.5" guns, and the silver levers are used for their reloading...
(Ups! I answered this question from an e-mail notification, so I can see that much better answers have been provided long before this post )

 

[Barrett]

Actually they're not for reloading but they're "charging handles" to chamber the first round in the ammo belt to each .50 cal. They could be pulled, however, trying to correct a malfunction in flight.

 

[Wurger]

IMHO, the reloading and the charging means the same in the case

 

[TheRealMrEd]

The black cylinders attached to the rear of the .50 cals are the firing relays. On aircraft-mounted M2 Brownings, the cylinder is used to "pull the trigger" to fire the gun. On regular, field-carried M2's of course have a regular manual firing handle or trigger.

Ed

 

[Sid327]

The black cylinders attached to the rear of the .50 cals are the firing relays. On aircraft-mounted M2 Brownings, the cylinder is used to "pull the trigger" to fire the gun. On regular, field-carried M2's of course have a regular manual firing handle or trigger.

Ed

Er, no.

They are the buffer plates to absorb the recoil of the bolt assembly.