Gyro gun sight
Item
Title
Gyro gun sight
Description
Gyro Gun Sight MK18 Model No.1, SERIAL No. 54691 Sight Unit SERIAL No. 11088 reflector is broken and the adjusting screws are sealed too tight and are impossible to adjust. The gyro gunsight is a type of gunsight is an optical device used to assist aim by guiding the eye and aligning it with the weapon or other item to be point in which target lead (the amount of aim-off in front of a moving target) and bullet drop are allowed-for automatically, the sight incorporating a gyroscopic mechanism that computes the necessary deflection is required to ensure a hit on the target. The sight was developed during the Second World War for aircraft use during aerial combat. The sight features both a fixed and a moving graticule, the fixed one signifying the direction the guns are pointing (in effect, the same as a 'normal', non-gyro, sight), the moving one the corrected aiming point. Providing the pilot/gunner uses the correct moving graticule then a hit on the target is highly likely.
Identifier
002.049.001
Format
Provenance
After tests with two experimental sights which had begun in 1939, the first production gyro gunsight was the British United Kingdom Mark I Gyro Sight was developed 1941 at Farnborough Royal Aircraft Establishment. Farnborough Airfield was a UK Ministry of Defence research establishment. Prototypes of which were tested in a Supermarine Spitfire, a single-seat fighter used by the RAF and many Allied countries in World War II....and the turret of a Boulton Paul Defiant. The Boulton Paul Defiant was an early World War II fighter aircraft of the Royal Air Force built by Boulton Paul Aircraft Ltd. With the successful conclusion of these tests the sight was put into production by Ferrani International. The first limited-production versions being available by the spring of 1941, with the sights being first used operationally against Luftwaffe. The sight had a number of drawbacks however, including requiring the pilot/gunner to look through a small aperture, so production was postponed and work started on an improved sight which would incorporate a normal reflector system instead. This new sight became the Mark II Gyro Sight, which was first tested in late 1943 with production examples becoming available later in the same year. The Mark II was also subsequently produced in the United States.
Abstract
Fair
Date Created
1940's