Stick Shake When Firing Guns

John Kunkel wrote:
Is this Hollywood or did the firing of the guns carry through to the
controls and cause stick shake as the movies depict?

FWIW, Robert S. Johnson (well, Martin Caidin in RSJ's name*)
claimed that on the occasion of his first kill, the noise of all 8 of
the Jug's fifties firing together scared (or at least startled) him to
the point that he let go of the trigger. Up 'til that point, he'd only
fired one at a time, at towed socks.

*note that Johnson left that part of the tale in when he revised
and re-released Thunderbolt!
Jeff

I can't imagine that, while firing all eight of those .50's in a P-47, that the
whole plane wasn't shaking....much less just the stick. Anybody with shooting
experience in that plane care to detail their experience?
Dave

Never flew the P-47 but firing the six guns in the Mustang created a
lot of noise but little if any vibration. Certainly didn't shake the
stick.

Howard Austin

Howard Austin wrote:
John Kunkel wrote:
Is this Hollywood or did the firing of the guns carry through to
the controls and cause stick shake as the movies depict?

FWIW, Robert S. Johnson (well, Martin Caidin in RSJ's name*)
claimed that on the occasion of his first kill, the noise of all 8
of
the Jug's fifties firing together scared (or at least startled) him
to
the point that he let go of the trigger. Up 'til that point, he'd
only
fired one at a time, at towed socks.

*note that Johnson left that part of the tale in when he revised
and re-released Thunderbolt!
Jeff

I can't imagine that, while firing all eight of those .50's in a
P-47, that the whole plane wasn't shaking....much less just the
stick. Anybody with shooting experience in that plane care to detail
their experience?
Dave

Never flew the P-47 but firing the six guns in the Mustang created a
lot of noise but little if any vibration. Certainly didn't shake the
stick.


I suppose it's quite difficult to portray vibration that can only be felt,
without resorting to subtitles.

One piece I read was of a Lancaster pilot who said that on full revs as the
Lanc' lurched forward at the start of its take-off run, the control column
felt like you were holding a hive full of angry bees.

Richard.

Subject: Stick Shake When Firing Guns
From: "Richard Brooks"
Date: 9/28/03 4:41 AM Pacific Daylight Time
Message-id:

Firing the nose gun on a B-26 didn't provide enough vibration to tumble the
Norden gyro. And it takes damn little to tumble a Norden gyro. There was more
noise than anything else. Same for the 4 package guns on the Marauder.



Arthur Kramer
344th BG 494th BS
England, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany
Visit my WW II B-26 website at:
http://www.coastcomp.com/artkramer

From: (Howard Austin)


I can't imagine that, while firing all eight of those .50's in a P-47, that
the whole plane wasn't shaking....much less just the stick. Anybody with
shooting experience in that plane care to detail their experience?
Dave

Never flew the P-47 but firing the six guns in the Mustang created a lot of
noise but little if any vibration. Certainly didn't shake the stick.
Howard Austin

Thanks for the details. It just seems soooo counter-intuitive, between the guns
blazing and the huge engine running, that there wasn't enough vibration in the
cockpit of those planes to jiggle the pilot's teeth loose. The dampening
mechanism on those plane's guns must have been more effective at killing
vibration then I supposed, never having flown any of them.
Dave