P-51 Live Firing

[dfarrow]

Has anyone seen this before ?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=niJ82YCiuYU

Get the feeling of how destructive the 0.5s were .

rgds dave f .

[petermcleland]

Not a patch on a Hunter Aden Gun pack Dave...I saw the exact same scenario set up with an Aden gun pack from a Hunter (4x30mm Cannons)...It was bolted down on the range...The target was a REAL Tempest Fighter that had been written off.

The ammo was only enough for a one second burst and a local dignitary was asked to press the button...The noise of the burst itself was shattering and very closely followed by a huge explosion as 80 High Explosive cannon shells hit the Tempest...There was nothing left of it but ash and small pieces.

Fantastic fire power but with one fairly severe limitation...A fully loaded Hunter had only 7 seconds firing time, so you needed to get it right first time...The old Venom had 30 seconds firing time so, for instance, if you were attacking a building on the ground, you could hold the sight picture at the top of the building and open fire a bit early and your strikes would hit the ground in front of the building and then walk up to the front door and do the job before you had to break. If you tried the same thing with the Hunter...you would see a stream of explosions walking towards the front door and then stopping short as you ran out of ammo!

[Airspeed]

Hi Dave,
I've seen comparisons between the .50 and .303, which show a noticeable difference in hitting power.
I think that the video would have been even more impressive if they'd set it up to actually hit the target, rather than two patches either side.

Hi Peter,
Now you're talking damage!! 1 3/16" vs 1/2" BOOM!
You might remember the comparative line drawings on the wall of my little on-line museum; the .50 cal Browning is much larger than the .303. The 20mm cannon makes the two Brownings look like toys. 30 and 40mm cannon make a terrifying weapon.
(See pic 6 in the left gallery, group 1 of the photos)
http://airspeedsflyingvisit.webplus.net/museum.html

[petermcleland]

Hi Mike,

I used Puffin and it worked fine...But I could not find the pics you refered to...However, I did find my Flipping Book and that worked great

[Airspeed]

Hi Peter,
It's this one, they are all life size, and the red discs are bore sizes: