>I have what may be a stupid question, but it's driving me crazy; when
>mounted on aircraft, was the cocking lever still attached?
In the March 1985 (Vol. 2, No. 1) of Aircraft Modelworld, Harry Woodman
published
Part 3 of his 10 part series on Early Aircraft Machine Guns. This particular
article was about the Vicker Machine Guns. Mr. Woodman says, among other
things,
"To fire, the crank on the right side of the gun was pulled up and back. By
pushing the thumb button on the firing lever at the rear of the gun, the bolt
shot foreward and fired the round. The resulting rearward impulse was
produced by the recoil augmented by the action of the muzzle attachment which
deflected some of the gas. This pushed the lock back taking with it a round
from the belt and stretching the fusee spring on the left side of the gun.
The spring then reacted and forced the bolt foreward which fired the gun,
etc. at the cyclic rate of between 450 and 550 rounds per minute. Firing
rate could be marginally adjusted by adjusting the screw on the fusee spring,
tightening the screw slowed down the action while slacking off had the
opposite effect."
"The guns were always fitted with cocking handles. These were fitted to the
rear
of the breech casing and when pulled back they turned the small crank. Such
auxillary handles had been found necessary during the war and the commonest
type was the
Hyland which was produced in more than one pattern. The items fitted to the
Camel needed to have the rear parts turned down as they could not be
accomodated under the front cockpit coaming."
I hope this helps, Mike