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90-571: Thousands of surplus Jennys were sold at bargain prices to private owners in the years after the war, and became central to the barnstorming era that helped awaken the US to civil aviation through much of the 1920s. Curtiss combined the best features of the model J and model N trainers , built for the US Army and US Navy , and began producing the JN or "Jenny" series of aircraft in 1915. Curtiss built only

180-491: A Portuguese fleet sent to India to take part in a colonial war in the 1740s. Also in 1737, it was mentioned that a German engineer had invented a 10-pounder cannon capable of firing 20 times in a minute. In 1740, a cannon able to shoot 11 times per minute was developed by a Frenchman called Chevalier de Benac. Meanwhile, not long after in England, in 1747 a cannon able to simultaneously charge and discharge itself 20 times in

270-421: A swivel gun that did not need cleaning or muzzle-loading and was capable of being made to any dimensions and used as an ordinary cannon at a moment's notice and firing 40 shots a minute was invented by a native of Ireland. Also in 1828 a revolver cannon capable of firing 12 shots a minute and worked by 2 artillerymen was invented by a Frenchman called Lesire-Fruyer. In 1854 this cannon would be put on display at

360-516: A tripod or on a vehicle; when carried on foot, the machine gun and associated equipment (tripod, ammunition, spare barrels) require additional crew members. Light machine guns are designed to provide mobile fire support to a squad and are typically air-cooled weapons fitted with a box magazine or drum and a bipod; they may use full-size rifle rounds, but modern examples often use intermediate rounds. Medium machine guns use full-sized rifle rounds and are designed to be used from fixed positions mounted on

450-416: A French artist known as Renard invented a piece of ordnance that could be operated by one man and fired 90 shots a minute. Also in 1792, a French mechanic called Garnier invented a musket battery made up of 15 barrels capable of firing 300 shots in 2 minutes for a total rate of fire of 150 shots a minute or 10 shots per minute per barrel and of being operated by one man. In the early and mid-19th century,

540-413: A barnstormer. Barnstorming was the first major form of civil aviation in the history of manned flight . The Wright brothers and Glenn Curtiss had early flying exhibition teams, with solo flyers like Lincoln Beachey and Didier Masson also popular before World War I , but barnstorming did not become a formal phenomenon until the 1920s. The first barnstormer, taught to fly by Curtiss in 1909,

630-601: A base of operation, the pilot or group of aviators would "buzz" the village and drop flyers . In some towns the arrival of a barnstormer or an aerial troupe would lead to a town-wide shutdown as people attended the show. Barnstormers performed a variety of stunts, with some specializing as stunt pilots or aerialists. Stunt pilots performed a variety of aerobatic maneuvers , including spins, dives, loop-the-loops and barrel rolls . Meanwhile, aerialists performed feats of wing walking , stunt parachuting , midair plane transfers, or even playing tennis , target shooting, and dancing on

720-411: A bipod and drum in the light machine gun role or a tripod and belt feed in the medium machine gun role. Machine guns usually have simple iron sights, though the use of optics is becoming more common. A common aiming system for direct fire is to alternate solid ("ball") rounds and tracer ammunition rounds (usually one tracer round for every four ball rounds), so shooters can see the trajectory and "walk"

810-407: A breech-loading volley gun , similar to the later mitrailleuse, was invented by a Frenchman called Du Perron which was worked by 3 or 4 men and capable of discharging 24 barrels 10 times a minute for a total rate of fire of 240 shots per minute. In 1776, a gun capable of charging and discharging itself 120 times 'by the motion of one hand only' in a minute was invented in England by an inventor from

900-431: A cartridge to overheat and detonate even when the trigger is not pulled, potentially leading to damage or causing the gun to cycle its action and keep firing until it has exhausted its ammunition supply or jammed; this is known as cooking off (as distinct from runaway fire where the sear fails to re-engage when the trigger is released). To guard against cook-offs occurring, some kind of cooling system or design element

990-644: A class of military kinetic projectile weapons, machine guns are designed to be mainly used as infantry support weapons and generally used when attached to a bipod or tripod , a fixed mount or a heavy weapons platform for stability against recoils . Many machine guns also use belt feeding and open bolt operation, features not normally found on other infantry firearms. Machine guns can be further categorized as light machine guns , medium machine guns , heavy machine guns , general-purpose machine guns , and squad automatic weapons . Unlike semi-automatic firearms , which require one trigger pull per round fired,

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1080-618: A common feed source. The continuous nature of the rotary action and its relative immunity to overheating allow for a very high cyclic rate of fire , often several thousand rounds per minute. Rotary guns are less prone to jamming than a gun operated by gas or recoil, as the external power source will eject misfired rounds with no further trouble; but this is not possible in the rare cases of self-powered rotary guns. Rotary designs are intrinsically comparatively bulky and expensive and are therefore generally used with large rounds, 20 mm in diameter or more, often referred to as Rotary cannon – though

1170-443: A full-power rifle cartridge from a closed bolt are called automatic rifles or battle rifles , while rifles that fire an intermediate cartridge are called assault rifles . Assault rifles are a compromise between the size and weight of a pistol-caliber submachine gun and a full-size battle rifle, firing intermediate cartridges and allowing semi-automatic and burst or full-automatic fire options (selective fire), sometimes with both of

1260-424: A given amount of heat, while at the same time they are also much better at shedding the excess, as the extra barrels provide a larger surface area from which to dissipate the unwanted thermal energy. In addition to that, they are in the nature of the design spun at very high speed during rapid fire, which has the benefit of producing enhanced air-cooling as a side-effect. In weapons where the round seats and fires at

1350-424: A handful of planes. Many of these were reliable and even advanced designs which suffered from the failure of the aviation market to expand as expected, and a number of these found their way into the only active markets—mail carrying, barnstorming, and smuggling. Sometimes a plane and its owner would drift between the three activities as opportunity presented. Combined with the lack of Federal Aviation Regulations at

1440-629: A limited number of the JN-1 and JN-2 biplanes . The design was commissioned by Glenn Curtiss from Englishman Benjamin Douglas Thomas, formerly of the Sopwith Aviation Company . The JN-2 was an equal-span biplane with ailerons controlled by a shoulder yoke in the aft cockpit . It was deficient in performance, particularly climbing, because of excessive weight. The improved JN-3 incorporated unequal spans with ailerons only on

1530-573: A machine capable of firing 600 balls in a few minutes. In 1720, a French inventor called Philippe Vayringe invented a small cannon that could fire 16 shots in succession, which he demonstrated before the Duke of Lorraine. In 1737, it was mentioned that Jacob de Weinholtz, a Dane who was serving in the Portuguese army, had invented a cannon capable of firing 20 to 30 shots a minute though requiring 15 people to work it. The cannons were brought along with

1620-494: A machine gun is designed to continue firing for as long as the trigger is held down. Nowadays, the term is restricted to relatively heavy crew-served weapons , able to provide continuous or frequent bursts of automatic fire for as long as ammunition feeding is replete. Machine guns are used against infantry , low-flying aircraft , small boats and lightly/un armored land vehicles , and can provide suppressive fire (either directly or indirectly ) or enforce area denial over

1710-610: A machine gun mounted in the rear cockpit) as an improvised bomb sight that was lined up with the long axis of his aircraft, loaded a bomb in a canvas mail bag that was attached to the JN-4's belly, and launched a single-handed raid at treetop level, in support of a USMC unit that had been trapped by Haitian Cacos rebels. Although the JN-4 almost disintegrated in the pullout, the attack was effective and led to Sanderson in 1920 developing further dive-bombing techniques to provide Marine pilots with close aerial support to infantry comrades. Although

1800-549: A minute of use. Because they become very hot, the great majority of designs fire from an open bolt , to permit air cooling from the breech between bursts. They also usually have either a barrel cooling system, slow-heating heavyweight barrel, or removable barrels which allow a hot barrel to be replaced. Although subdivided into " light ", " medium ", " heavy " or " general-purpose ", even the lightest machine guns tend to be substantially larger and heavier than standard infantry arms. Medium and heavy machine guns are either mounted on

1890-503: A minute though the rate of fire was limited by the overheating of the barrel. In 1819, an American inventor from Baltimore designed a gun with 11 barrels that could fire 12 times in a minute for a total rate of fire of 132 shots a minute. In 1821, a muzzle-loading repeating cannon capable of firing 30 shots in 6 minutes or 5 shots per minute was demonstrated in England by the French-American "Fire King" Ivan Ivanitz Chabert. It

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1980-822: A minute was invented by James Allis and presented to the Royal Society of England. In 1750, in Denmark, a Prussian known as Captain Steuben of the Train of Artillery invented a breech-loading cannon worked by 4 people and fed by paper cartridges capable of firing 24 times in a minute and demonstrated it to the King of Denmark along with some other high-ranking officials in the same year. In 1764, Frenchman Ange Goudar wrote in his work The Chinese Spy that he had assisted in Paris in

2070-415: A multi-shot weapon by a Palmer during this period appear to be referring to a somewhat more common Kalthoff repeater or Lorenzoni-system gun . Despite this, there is a reference in 1663 to at least the concept of a genuine automatic gun that was presented to Prince Rupert , though its type and method of operation are unknown. In 1708, it was reported from Constantinople that a French officer had invented

2160-668: A number of rapid-firing weapons appeared which offered multi-shot fire, mostly volley guns. Volley guns (such as the Mitrailleuse ) and double-barreled pistols relied on duplicating all parts of the gun, though the Nock gun used the otherwise-undesirable "chain fire" phenomenon (where multiple chambers are ignited at once) to propagate a spark from a single flintlock mechanism to multiple barrels. Pepperbox pistols also did away with needing multiple hammers but used multiple manually operated barrels. Revolvers further reduced this to only needing

2250-430: A pre-prepared cylinder and linked advancing the cylinder to cocking the hammer. However, these were still manually operated. In 1805, a British inventor from Northampton designed a cannon that would prime, load and fire itself 10 times a minute. In 1806, a Viennese copper engraver and mechanic known as Mr Putz invented a machine cannon that could load, fire and clean itself once every second or potentially up to 60 times

2340-467: A rash of highly publicized accidents led to new safety regulations, which led to the demise of barnstorming. Spurred by a perceived need to protect the public and in response to political pressure by local pilots upset at barnstormers stealing their customers, the federal government enacted laws to regulate a fledgling civil aviation sector. The laws included safety standards and specifications that were virtually impossible for barnstormers to meet, , such as

2430-402: A reasonable rate of fire and reliability. In contrast to the rotary format, such weapons have a single barrel and a recoil-operated carriage holding a revolving chamber with typically five chambers. As each round is fired, electrically, the carriage moves back rotating the chamber which also ejects the spent case, indexes the next live round to be fired with the barrel and loads the next round into

2520-466: A reduced rate of fire. Some designs – such as the many variants of the MG42 – are capable of rates of fire in excess of 1,200 rounds per minute. Motorized Gatling guns can achieve the fastest firing rates of all, partly because this format involves extra energy being injected into the system from outside, instead of depending on energy derived from the propellant contained within the cartridges, partly because

2610-598: A sector of land with grazing fire . They are commonly mounted on fast attack vehicles such as technicals to provide heavy mobile firepower, armored vehicles such as tanks for engaging targets too small to justify the use of the primary weaponry or too fast to effectively engage with it, and on aircraft as defensive armament or for strafing ground targets, though on fighter aircraft true machine guns have mostly been supplanted by large-caliber rotary guns. Some machine guns have in practice sustained fire almost continuously for hours; other automatic weapons overheat after less than

2700-414: A time when close. It was also claimed to be able to shoot 5 or 6 times before infantry came within musket range or cavalry within pistol range and with no more space between each shot than the time needed to prime a pistol, cock it and release the hammer as well as being nearly as manoeuvrable as cavalry. An alternative and heavier version was said to be able to throw grenades and it was also proposed to equip

2790-601: A top speed of 75 mph (121 km/h) and a service ceiling of 6,500 ft (2,000 m). The British used the JN-4 (Canadian), along with the Avro 504 , for their primary World War I trainer using the Canadian Aeroplanes Ltd. indigenous variant. Many Royal Flying Corps pilots earned their wings on the JN-4, both in Ontario and later in winter facilities at Camp Taliaferro , Texas. Although ostensibly

Curtiss JN Jenny - Misplaced Pages Continue

2880-539: A training aircraft, the Jenny was extensively modified while in service to undertake additional roles. Due to its robust but easily adapted structure able to be modified with ski undercarriage, the Canadian Jenny was flown year-round, even in inclement weather. The removable turtle deck behind the cockpits allowed for conversion to stretcher or additional supplies and equipment storage, with the modified JN-4s becoming

2970-497: A tripod. The heavy machine gun is a term originating in World War I to describe heavyweight medium machine guns and persisted into World War II with Japanese Hotchkiss M1914 clones; today, however, it is used to refer to automatic weapons with a caliber of at least 12.7 mm (0.5 in), but less than 20 mm (0.8 in). A general-purpose machine gun is usually a lightweight medium machine gun that can either be used with

3060-436: A very light cannon that could fire from a single barrel 30 shots in 2 and a half minutes for a total rate of fire of 12 shots a minute. In 1711, a French lawyer called Barbuot presented to the parliament of Dijon a crank-operated 'war machine' made up of 10 carbine barrels and loaded via a 'drum' capable of firing in vollies. It was said to be accurate at 400 to 500 paces and to strike with enough force to pierce 2 or 3 men at

3150-623: Is a fully automatic and rifled firearm designed for sustained direct fire with rifle cartridges . Other automatic firearms such as automatic shotguns and automatic rifles (including assault rifles and battle rifles ) are typically designed more for firing short bursts rather than continuous firepower and are not considered true machine guns. Submachine guns fire handgun cartridges rather than rifle cartridges, therefore they are not considered machine guns, while automatic firearms of 20 mm (0.79 in) caliber or more are classified as autocannons rather than machine guns. As

3240-569: Is a revolving arquebus , produced by Hans Stopler of Nuremberg in 1597. True repeating long arms were difficult to manufacture prior to the development of the unitary firearm cartridge; nevertheless, lever-action repeating rifles such as the Kalthoff repeater and Cookson repeater were made in small quantities in the 17th century. Perhaps the earliest examples of predecessors to the modern machine gun are to be found in East Asia. According to

3330-900: Is locked into the chamber. Almost all machine guns have a "safety" sear, which simply keeps the trigger from engaging. The first successful machine-gun designs were developed in the mid-19th century. The key characteristic of modern machine guns, their relatively high rate of fire and more importantly mechanical loading, first appeared in the Model 1862 Gatling gun , which was adopted by the United States Navy . These weapons were still powered by hand; however, this changed with Hiram Maxim 's idea of harnessing recoil energy to power reloading in his Maxim machine gun . Dr. Gatling also experimented with electric-motor-powered models; as discussed above, this externally powered machine reloading has seen use in modern weapons as well. While technical use of

3420-634: Is required. Early machine guns were often water-cooled and while this technology was very effective, (and was indeed one of the sources of the notorious efficiency of machine guns during the First World War ), the water jackets also added considerable weight to an already bulky design; they were also vulnerable to the enemies' bullets themselves. Armour could be provided, and in WW I the Germans in particular often did this; but this added yet more weight to

3510-549: Is the recoil actuated type, which uses the gun's recoil energy for the same purpose. Machine guns, such as the M2 Browning and MG42 , are of this second kind. A cam, lever or actuator absorbs part of the energy of the recoil to operate the gun mechanism. An externally actuated weapon uses an external power source, such as an electric motor or hand crank, to move its mechanism through the firing sequence. Modern weapons of this type are often referred to as Gatling guns , after

3600-680: The Jazz Age in the United States allowed barnstormers to publicize aviation and eventually contributed to bringing about regulation and control. In 1925, the U.S. government began regulating aviation , when it passed the Contract Air Mail Act, which allowed the U.S. Post Office to hire private airlines to deliver mail with payments made based on the weight of the mail. The following year, President Calvin Coolidge signed

3690-620: The Marie Meyer Flying Circus and others, making a marginal living; Errold Bahl hired him as an assistant, and as a promotional stunt, Lindbergh "volunteered to climb out onto the wing and wave to the crowds below," a performance known as " wing walking ." During a barnstorming tour in Minnesota and Wisconsin in 1923, he made the "decision to pursue further formal instruction with the U.S. Army Air Service ." The sensational journalism and economic prosperity that marked

Curtiss JN Jenny - Misplaced Pages Continue

3780-462: The Nordenfelt gun . The first known ancestors of multi-shot weapons were medieval organ guns . An early example of an attempt at the mechanisation of one of these would be an 'engine of war' produced in the mid-1570s in England capable of firing from 160 to 320 shots 4, 8, 12 or 24 bullets at a time at a rate of fire up to roughly 3 times the rate of fire of the typical arquebusier of the day. It

3870-1129: The Waco 6 . Between 1917 and 1919, the JN-4 type accounted for several significant aviation firsts while in service with the US Army Signal Corps Aviation Section and the United States Marine Corps (USMC), including flying the first US Air Mail in May 1918. In a series of tests conducted at the US Army's Langley Field in Hampton, Virginia, in July and August 1917, the world's first "plane-to-plane" and "ground-to-plane, and vice versa" communications by radiotelephony (as opposed to radiotelegraphy which had been developed earlier) were made to and from modified US Army JN-4s by Western Electric Company ( Bell Labs ) design engineers Lewis M. Clement and Raymond Heising,

3960-556: The Air Commerce Act, which shifted the management of air routes to a new branch in the Department of Commerce , which was also responsible for "licensing of planes and pilots, establishing safety regulations, and general promotion." Barnstorming "seemed to be founded on bravado, with 'one-upmanship' a major incentive." By 1927, competition among barnstormers resulted in their performing increasingly dangerous tricks, and

4050-774: The Flying Aces Air Circus, the 13 Black Cats , Mabel Cody’s Flying Circus, the Inman Brothers Flying Circus, and the Marie Meyer Flying Circus . Perhaps the largest and most successful of these was the Gates Flying Circus , which attracted in its heyday tens of thousands to a single show. A Time magazine article estimated it staged 2000 air meets in 44 states. Barnstorming was performed not only by former military men, but also by women, minorities, and minority women. For example, on July 18, 1915, Katherine Stinson became

4140-470: The JN-2 was unsafe because of low power, shoddy construction, lack of stability, and overly sensitive rudder. Foulois and his executive officer Capt. Thomas D. Milling disagreed, and flights continued until a second JN-2 crashed in early September, resulting in the grounding of the six remaining JN-2s until mid-October. When two new JN-3s were delivered, the grounded aircraft were then upgraded in accordance with

4230-512: The JN-4 (Canadian), also known as the " Canuck ", had some differences from the American version, including a lighter airframe, ailerons on both wings, a bigger and more rounded rudder, and differently shaped wings, stabilizer, and elevators. As many as 12 JN-4 aircraft were fitted with an aftermarket Sikorsky wing by the then-fledgling company in the late 1920s. The Curtiss JN-4 is possibly North America's most famous World War I aircraft. It

4320-567: The Past" featured the restoration and first flight by Ken Hyde of a JN-4D that would go on to win the "Lindy Award" at the EAA AirVenture Oshkosh '87. The stamp also made an appearance in the 1985 film starring Richard Pryor, Brewster's Millions , in which the titular character mails an "Inverted Jenny" stamp as part of a ploy to very quickly and frivolously spend as much money as possible. Barnstorming Barnstorming

4410-780: The US Navy. A floatplane version was built for the navy, which was so modified, it was essentially a different airframe. This was designated the N-9 . In US Army Air Service usage, the JN-4s and JN-6s were configured to the JNS ("S" for "standardized") model. The Jenny remained in service with the US Army until 1927. After World War I, thousands were sold on the civilian market, including one to Charles Lindbergh in May 1923, in which he then soloed. Surplus US Army aircraft were sold (some still in their unopened packing crates) for as little as $ 50, flooding

4500-680: The Wu-Pei-Chih, a booklet examining Chinese military equipment produced during the first quarter of the 17th century, the Chinese army had in its arsenal the 'Po-Tzu Lien-Chu-P'ao' or 'string-of-100-bullets cannon'. This was a repeating cannon fed by a hopper containing balls which fired its charges sequentially. The way it worked was similar to the Perkins steam gun of 1824 or the Beningfield electrolysis gun of 1845 only slow-burning gunpowder

4590-521: The barnstorming era when the Jennys "ruled supreme" and played a feature role, was The Spirit of St. Louis (1957) and The Great Waldo Pepper (1974). In The Court Martial of Billy Mitchell (1955), authentic OX-5 Jennys were showcased as United States Army Air Service training aircraft. Broadcast on April 15, 1987, by PBS , the National Geographic special entitled "Treasures from

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4680-461: The basis of size; those using shotgun cartridges are almost always referred to as automatic shotguns . The term personal defense weapon (PDW) is sometimes applied to weapons firing dedicated armor-piercing rounds which would otherwise be regarded as machine pistols or SMGs, but it is not particularly strongly defined and has historically been used to describe a range of weapons from ordinary SMGs to compact assault rifles. Selective-fire rifles firing

4770-532: The blue central vignette of US Army Curtiss JN-4HM #38262, the nation's first mailplane , appeared as "inverted" on a single sheet of 100 stamps. In 1921, Lee De Forest made a short film Flying Jenny Airplane in his Phonofilm sound-on-film process. The film depicted a JN-4 flying, and recorded the sound of the Jenny, as well. The short documentary was the first production of the De Forest Phonofilm company. Among many later films depicting

4860-406: The chamber. The action is very similar to that of the revolver pistols common in the 19th and 20th centuries, giving this type of weapon its name. A Chain gun is a specific, patented type of Revolver cannon, the name, in this case, deriving from its driving mechanism. As noted above, firing a machine gun for prolonged periods produces large amounts of heat. In a worst-case scenario, this may cause

4950-472: The country giving rides as late as fall 1941. "Barnstorming season" ran from early spring until after the harvest and county fairs in the fall. Most barnstorming shows started with a pilot, or team of pilots flying over a small rural town to attract local attention. They would then land at a local farm (hence the term "barnstorming") and negotiate for the use of a field as a temporary runway from which to stage an air show and offer airplane rides. After obtaining

5040-547: The county of Westmoreland. In 1777, Philadelphia gunsmith Joseph Belton offered the Continental Congress a "new improved gun" , which was capable of firing up to twenty shots in five seconds; unlike older repeaters using complex lever-action mechanisms, it used a simpler system of superposed loads , and was loaded with a single large paper cartridge . Congress requested that Belton modify 100 flintlock muskets to fire eight shots in this manner, but rescinded

5130-556: The definitive JN-4D. Production from spare or reconditioned parts continued sporadically until 1927, although most of the final orders were destined for the civilian market in Canada and the United States. Like the re-engined JN-4H version of the most-produced JN-4 subtype, the final production version of the aircraft was the JN-6 , powered by a Wright Aeronautical license-built, 150 hp (112 kW) Hispano-Suiza 8 V-8, first ordered in 1918 for

5220-485: The developers of the experimental wind generator-powered airborne wireless voice transmitter and receiver equipment. In early 1919, a USMC JN-4 was also credited with what is believed to be the first successful dive-bombing attack during the United States occupation of Haiti . USMC pilot Lt Lawson H. Sanderson mounted a carbine barrel in front of the windshield of his JN-4 (previously, an unarmed trainer that had

5310-531: The fire into the target, and direct the fire of other soldiers . Many heavy machine guns , such as the Browning M2 .50 BMG machine gun, are accurate enough to engage targets at great distances. During the Vietnam War , Carlos Hathcock set the record for a long-distance shot at 7,382 ft (2,250 m) with a .50 caliber heavy machine gun he had equipped with a telescopic sight . This led to

5400-567: The first aerial ambulances, carrying out this role both during wartime and in later years. Most of the 6,813 Jennys built were unarmed, although some had machine guns and bomb racks for advanced training. With deployment limited to North American bases, none saw combat service in World War I. The Curtiss factory in Buffalo, New York, was the largest such facility in the world, but due to production demands, from November 1917 to January 1919, six different manufacturers were involved in production of

5490-575: The first series of JN-4s was virtually identical to the JN-3, the JN-4 series was based on production orders from 1915 to 1919. Data from Curtiss Aircraft 1907–1947, The Encyclopedia of World Aircraft General characteristics Performance An image of the Curtis Jenny appeared on the first airmail stamps issued by the U.S. Post Office in 1918 The " Inverted Jenny " (C-3a) is a 24-cent 1918 US Air Mail postage stamp printing error in which

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5580-460: The first woman in the world to perform a loop. Bessie Coleman , an African-American woman, "not only thrilled audiences with her skills as a barnstormer, but she also became a role model for women and African Americans. Her very presence in the air threatened prevailing contemporary stereotypes. She also fought segregation when she could by using her influence as a celebrity." Charles Lindbergh engaged in barnstorming in his early years, with

5670-573: The guns. Air-cooled machine guns often feature quick-change barrels (often carried by a crew member), passive cooling fins, or in some designs forced-air cooling, such as that employed by the Lewis Gun . Advances in metallurgy and the use of special composites in barrel liners have allowed for greater heat absorption and dissipation during firing. The higher the rate of fire, the more often barrels must be changed and allowed to cool. To minimize this, most air-cooled guns are fired only in short bursts or at

5760-513: The introduction of .50 caliber anti-materiel sniper rifles , such as the Barrett M82 . Other automatic weapons are subdivided into several categories based on the size of the bullet used, whether the cartridge is fired from a closed bolt or an open bolt , and whether the action used is locked or is some form of blowback . Fully automatic firearms using pistol-caliber ammunition are called machine pistols or submachine guns largely on

5850-606: The inventions mentioned in the book, it is uncertain if it was ever built. It is sometimes claimed (i.e. in George Morgan Chinn's the Machine Gun ) that in 1663 the first mention of the automatic principle of machine guns was in a paper presented to the Royal Society of England by Palmer, an Englishman who described a volley gun capable of being operated by either recoil or gas. However, no one has been able to find this paper in recent times and all references to

5940-530: The latter presents. Many machine guns are of the locked breech type, and follow this cycle: The operation is basically the same for all locked breech automatic firearms, regardless of the means of activating these mechanisms. There are also multi-chambered formats, such as revolver cannon , and some types, such as the Schwarzlose machine gun etc., that do not lock the breech but instead use some type of delayed blowback . Most modern machine guns are of

6030-514: The locking type, and of these, most utilize the principle of gas-operated reloading , which taps off some of the propellant gas from the fired cartridge, using its mechanical pressure to unlock the bolt and cycle the action. The first of these was invented by the French brothers Claire, who patented a gas operated rifle, which included a gas cylinder, in 1892. The Russian PK machine gun is a more modern example. Another efficient and widely used format

6120-438: The machine with a bellows for clearing smoke that built up during firing. Another early revolving gun was created by James Puckle , a London lawyer, who patented what he called "The Puckle Gun " on May 15, 1718. It was a design for a manually operated 1.25 in. (32 mm) caliber, flintlock cannon with a revolver cylinder able to fire 6–11 rounds before reloading by swapping out the cylinder, intended for use on ships . It

6210-564: The market. With private and commercial flying in North America unhampered by regulations concerning their use, pilots found the Jenny's stability and slow speed made it ideal for stunt flying and aerobatic displays in the barnstorming era between the world wars, with the nearly identical Standard J-1 aircraft often used alongside it. Some were still flying into the 1930s. JN-4 airframes were used to produce early Weaver Aircraft Company / Advance Aircraft Company / Waco aircraft, such as

6300-520: The minimum altitude at which certain tricks could be performed (making it harder for spectators to see what was happening). The military also stopped selling Jennys in the late 1920s. This made it too difficult for barnstormers to make a living. Clyde Pangborn , who was the pilot of the two-man aviation team who were the first to cross the Pacific Ocean nonstop in 1931, ended his barnstorming career in 1931. Some pilots, however, continued to wander

6390-608: The new design. In March 1916, these eight JN-3s were deployed to Mexico for aerial observation during the Pancho Villa Expedition of 1916–1917. After the successful deployment of the JN-3, Curtiss produced a development, known as the JN-4, with orders from both the US Army and an order in December 1916 from the Royal Flying Corps for a training aircraft to be based in Canada. The Canadian version,

6480-430: The next round can be inserted simultaneously with or before the ejection of the previous cartridge case, and partly because this design intrinsically deals with the unwanted heat very efficiently – effectively quick-changing the barrel and chamber after every shot. The multiple guns that comprise a Gatling being a much larger bulk of metal than other, single-barreled guns, they are thus much slower to rise in temperature for

6570-413: The order when Belton's price proved too high. In 1779, a machine made up of 21 musket barrels worked by 3 men was produced by a British inventor called William Wilson Wright which he claimed could be fired 3 times quicker than a single man could load and fire a musket 3 times. In 1788, a Swiss soldier invented a machine worked by 10 men capable of discharging 300 balls in 3 minutes. Also in 1788, it

6660-413: The original inventor (not only of the well-known hand-cranked 19th century proto-machine gun, but also of the first electrically powered version). They have several barrels each with an associated chamber and action on a rotating carousel and a system of cams that load, cock, and fire each mechanism progressively as it rotates through the sequence; essentially each barrel is a separate bolt-action rifle using

6750-649: The plane's wings. Other stunts included nose dives and flying through barns, which sometimes led to pilots crashing their planes. Barnstormers offered plane rides for a small fee. Lindbergh, for example, charged five dollars for a 15-minute ride in his plane. However exciting and glamorous, it was not an easy way to make a steady living. To make ends meet, the barnstormers—including Charles Lindbergh—often had to moonlight as flying instructors, handymen, gas station attendants, etc. Barnstormers often traded plane rides for room and board, both for commercial lodging and in private homes. Machine gun A machine gun ( MG )

6840-408: The proofing of a 'great gun' capable of firing 60 times in a minute. In 1773, another cannon capable of firing 23 or 24 times in a minute and cleaning itself after every shot was invented by Thomas Desaguliers . In 1775, it was mentioned that in England two large cannons invented by an unidentified matross at Woolwich had achieved a rate of fire of 59 shots in 59 and a half seconds. Also in 1775,

6930-532: The rifle-calibre Minigun is an exception to this. Whereas such weapons are highly reliable and formidably effective, one drawback is that the weight and size of the power source and driving mechanism makes them usually impractical for use outside of a vehicle or aircraft mount. Revolver cannons , such as the Mauser MK 213 , were developed in World War II by the Germans to provide high-caliber cannons with

7020-406: The same time, mechanical timing is essential for operator safety, to prevent the round from firing before it is seated properly. Machine guns are controlled by one or more mechanical sears. When a sear is in place, it effectively stops the bolt at some point in its range of motion. Some sears stop the bolt when it is locked to the rear. Other sears stop the firing pin from going forward after the round

7110-432: The surplus material, including the Jennys, for a fraction of their initial value (they had cost the government $ 5,000 each, but were being sold for as low as $ 200). This allowed many servicemen who already knew how to fly the JN-4s to purchase their own planes. The similar-looking Standard J -1 biplane was also available. At the same time, numerous aircraft manufacturing companies sprang up, most failing after building only

7200-550: The term "machine gun" has varied, the modern definition used by the Sporting Arms and Ammunition Manufacturers' Institute of America is "a fully automatic firearm that loads, fires and ejects continuously when the trigger is held to the rear until the ammunition is exhausted or pressure on the trigger is released." This definition excludes most early manually operated repeating arms the Gatling gun and such as volley guns like

7290-503: The time, these factors allowed barnstorming to flourish. Although barnstormers often worked alone or in very small teams, some also organized large "flying circuses" with multiple planes and stunt people. These acts employed promoters to book shows in towns ahead of time. They were the largest and most organized of all of the barnstorming acts. Well-known circuses included the Five Blackbirds (an African American flying group),

7380-722: The upper wings, controlled by a wheel . In addition, a foot bar was added to control the rudder . The 1st Aero Squadron of the Aviation Section, US Signal Corps received eight JN-2s at San Diego in July 1915. The squadron was transferred to Fort Sill , Oklahoma , in August to work with the Field Artillery School, during which one JN-2 crashed, resulting in a fatality. The pilots of the squadron met with its commander, Capt. Benjamin Foulois , to advise that

7470-500: Was a form of entertainment in which stunt pilots performed tricks individually or in groups that were called flying circuses . Devised to "impress people with the skill of pilots and the sturdiness of planes," it became popular in the United States during the Roaring Twenties . Barnstormers were pilots who flew throughout the country to sell airplane rides and perform stunts. Charles Lindbergh first began flying as

7560-680: Was also claimed that the gun could be reloaded 'as often as you like' and fired no matter the weather though the English government never adopted the weapon despite testing being carried out at the Tower of London . The first firearms to have the ability to fire multiple shots from a single barrel without a full manual reload were revolvers made in Europe in the late 1500s. One is a shoulder-gun-length weapon made in Nuremberg, Germany, circa 1580. Another

7650-433: Was one Charles Foster Willard , who is also credited as the first to be shot down in an airplane when an annoyed farmer fired a squirrel gun and broke his propeller. During World War I, the United States manufactured a significant number of Curtiss JN-4 "Jenny" biplanes to train its military aviators , and almost every American airman learned to fly using the plane. After the war the U.S. federal government sold off

7740-459: Was one of the earliest weapons to be referred to as a machine gun, being called such in 1722, though its operation does not match the modern usage of the term. According to Puckle, it was able to fire round bullets at Christians and square bullets at Turks . However, it was a commercial failure and was not adopted or produced in any meaningful quantity. In 1729, a report was written in France on

7830-413: Was reported that a Prussian officer had invented a gun capable of firing 400 balls one after the other. In 1790, a former officer in the French military known as Joseph-François-Louis Grobert invented a 'ballistic machine' or 'pyroballistic machine' with multiple barrels operated by 4 men and a continuous rotational movement capable of firing 360 rifle shots a minute in a variety of calibers. In 1792,

7920-562: Was used as the propelling force in place of steam or the gases produced by electrolysis. Another repeating gun was produced by a Chinese commoner, Dai Zi, in the late 17th century. This weapon was also hopper-fed and never went into mass production. In 1655, a way of loading, aiming and shooting up to 6 wall muskets 60 times in a minute for a total rate of fire of 360 shots per minute was mentioned in The Century of Inventions by Edward Somerset, 2nd Marquess of Worcester , though, like all

8010-427: Was widely used during World War I to train beginning pilots, with an estimated 95% of all trainees having flown a JN-4. The US version was called "Jenny", a derivation from its official designation. It was a twin-seat (student in front of instructor), dual-control biplane. Its tractor propeller and maneuverability made it ideal for initial pilot training with a 90  hp (67 kW) Curtiss OX-5 V8 engine giving

8100-420: Was worked by a "wheel" fed by paper cartridges from a store attached to the cannon and ignited using a match from a match-holder somewhere else on the cannon. In 1825 an Italian book attempting to catalogue all topographic features of all known countries on Earth mentioned that in France there were 'mechanical rifles' used to defend warehouses that were capable of firing 120 shots without reloading. In 1828,

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