Dear JerryW HoHun:
The PIPE Here again...and where I'm interested in eventually, and VERY accurately (for the very first time, anywhere), as an RC Giant (1/4th sized) Scale flying model, replicating Leutnant Kurt Wintgens' Fokker M.5K/MG, with IdFlieg serial number E.5/15, the very first aircraft to ever score a victory with a synchronized machine gun on July 1, 1915, I've taken a HUUGE interest in how the idea of the synchronized machine gun got started, and its very first successful engagements.
I've been a LONG time member of Leo Opdycke's WW I AERO, and a number of issues of that fine magazine in the past had a three-part article in them authored by the late Canadian aviation author, Hank Volker, that concisely detailed the whole history of forwards-firing automatic weapons on fighter aircraft.
The articles can be found in these back issues of WW I AERO...
WW1 Aero No.137 (August 1992) pgs. 42-61 Part I Synchronizers: firing through the prop: origins - a historical survey
WW1 Aero No.138 (November 1992) pgs. 74-83 Part II Synchronizers: firing through the prop: machine-gun synchronizers and "interrupters"
WW1 Aero No.142 (November 1993) pgs. 47-62 Part III Synchronizers. Firing through the prop: automatic guns for synchronizers.
I've found my copies of issues 137 138, but a GOOD bit of cleanup around my house needs to be done before I'm likely to find my copy of issue No.142 !!!
Hank mentions the roles of August Euler, as being THE person to first patent the idea of a forward-firing machine gun of any sort on an aircraft, of Franz Schneider, and even the Siemens-Schuckert firm, who apparently pioneered the idea of using an electrical link to do the gun synchronization with.
Tha article series also covers Garros' armored, "wedged" propeller, and why the Kaiser's military couldn't get it to work for their needs.
If one also wishes to get an even MORE complete picture of how the whole deal unfolded over time, the Windsock Datafile No.91, on the Fokker E I and E II aircraft, also has even more info on the details of how the gun synchronizer got into service with the Luftstreitkräfte, and mentions prminently how one Leutnant Otto Parschau was a critical personage in its development, as well as Kurt Wintgens, the first pilot to ever get a victory with it.
The Osprey "Aircraft of the Aces"-No.73, "Early German Aces of World War I", has some of the same info, but also has other items not mentioned in the Datafile...taken together, along with Hank Volker's articles (for which some of the historical info IS "updated" by the Datafile and Osprey books) would seem to provide about the clearest "picture" ever seen to date on HOW Fokker's Stangensteuerung pioneering gun synchronizer got into service in the first half of 1915, and how things got going for the Kaiser's fliers in starting the "Fokker Scourge" that the Nieuport Bébé and Airco D.H.2 started to overcome as 1916 wore on.
Yours Sincerely,
The PIPE!