Synchronization gear
Videos
A synchronization gear was a device enabling a single-engine tractor-configuration aircraft to fire its forward-firing armament through the arc of its spinning propeller without bullets striking the b
The synchronization gear of a Messerschmitt Bf 109E1 is adjusted (January 1941). A wooden disk attached to the propeller is used to indicate where each round passes through the propeller arc.
Propeller of an Albatros C.III with one blade severed as a result of a faulty synchronization gear or faulty adjustment
The Fokker E.IV prototype's original "three-Spandau" armament, before the portside gun was removed. Production examples had two guns, arranged symmetrically.
Drawing from Euler's 1910 patent for a fixed forward-firing machine gun
Sopwith Camel
Videos
The Sopwith Camel is a British First World War single-seat biplane fighter aircraft that was introduced on the Western Front in 1917. It was developed by the Sopwith Aviation Company as a successor to
Synchronization gear
…08 "Spandau" machine guns; this armament became standard for all the German D-type scouts starting with the Albatros D.I. From the appearance of the Sopwith Camel and the SPAD S.XIII in mid-1917, right through to the end of gun synchronization in the 1950s, a twin gun installation was the international norm…
Sopwith Camel
Harry Cobby sitting in the cockpit of a Sopwith Camel
Replica Sopwith Camel showing internal structure
1917 Sopwith F.1 Camel at Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center