30 cal. Belt Feds on WWI Aircraft

[Juker008]

Hello all. I wanted to ask those that may know. In WWII, those fighters that had .30 cal belt feds in the wings or nose. What did they do or have available/installed in the event of a jam/malfunction.



Thank you,

Juker008

[looney]

I once saw that they had the ammo in a large drum, so 1 long line. And they carried hammers to fix jamms.

[Kocur]

Hello all. I wanted to ask those that may know. In WWII, those fighters that had .30 cal belt feds in the wings or nose. What did they do or have available/installed in the event of a jam/malfunction.

By default there were means of performing "immediate action", to use small arms term. Sometimes manually in case of nose guns and far more often by devices of electrical, pneumatic or hydraulic nature, pilot could reload his guns. If pulling bolt wasn't enough to clear the malfunction, it would stay that way, because nothing more could be done in the air.

[Juker008]

After speaking with a few knowledgeable fellows. I was informed that they used pneumatic assisted bolt, or something attached to the cocking handle that was pneumatically cycled. In the event of a jam or what not, the pilot would never know as it was pneumatically assisted loading.

[looney]

Pneumatics, yea you could say that. It where simple blowback systems.

Here a website about the Maxim gun, the guns on a airplane where similar.

Unimaps.com - The Maxim Gun

[Maxrobot1]

WW1 aircraft machine guns, Vickers and Maxim (Spanadu) type used refillable cloth belts. Disintergrating link type belts only came out late in the war. The cloth belts did not hold the rounds very tightly and if a round was loose or not seated properly it could cause a stoppage.
Most fighters had the guns mounted with the breeches right in front of the pilots face (Some were even padded in case the pilots face hit them).
The first act upon a stoppage would be for the pilot to reach up and cycle the charging handle of the gun that stopped. If that did not work, then it would have to be fixed on the ground.
Each gun was independent and if one malfunctioned the other could still fire.
A pilot could not afford to concentrate on clearing a jam while enemy craft were buzzing around.