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Post by Deleted on Sept 17, 2007 10:41:33 GMT 9
When they started mounted M61 20mm gatling guns on the F-106 how did they do that with the weapons bay doors? It would seem from the pics that they would have to modify/cut a hole for the gun. Also how did that effect AIM-4 weapons carriage? Just wondering. ALso anyone have good high res. pictures of this gun installation. Did all the f-106 squadrons have this mod.? When I was growing up I remember going down to the airport to look at the Montana ANG F-106's. Never remember seeing this gun installation.
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Post by lindel on Sept 17, 2007 11:05:40 GMT 9
No hi-res pics, but they did modify the doors some, and the front rails were removed. The back rails were still functional, but I don't know if they could be used with the gun in place.
I've heard that the t-33 tow plane pilots called it quits when the pilots quit trying to hit the target and started seeing how close they could cut the tow cable to the t-33. Not sure how true that is, but it is what I heard.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 18, 2007 9:25:59 GMT 9
I did a little research and the F-106 could carry a full AIM-4 armament along with the M61. The gun took the place of the Genie missile. It talks about this in the F-106 delta dart.com website. ALso I just got the F-106 Detail and scale book by Bert Kinzey. It has a lot of great pictures. Not all the F-106 were equipped with the gun though. I found that interesting.
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Post by lindel on Sept 18, 2007 10:08:39 GMT 9
When they were doing the testing at Tyndall, they had to remove the forward rails, that was where the gun lived. I was there for during some of the testing for the INS modification. The Genie lived behind the forward rails (the forward rails were attached to a common body), and between the rear rails.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 18, 2007 13:12:02 GMT 9
from what I have been reading and the pictures, it was located in between the two rear rails where the genie missile was mounted. Interesting
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MOW
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Post by MOW on Sept 18, 2007 14:39:41 GMT 9
The M61 mounted in between the rear rails. The two hydraulic connectors where mounted on the back bulkhead. No rails were removed, but the gun did take the place of the Genie. The rear doors were changed to accommodate the gun pod. The 456th page at www.456fis.org/Vulcan%20Cannon.htm has some copies of the Wings of Fame Vol 12 book. I guess need to find some more good photos of this. If anyone has any please e-mail them to me at mcgeepj2@hotmail.com
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sixerviper
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Post by sixerviper on Sept 19, 2007 1:13:51 GMT 9
Anybody know how many rounds this gun mod carried? Where was the ammo drum? The mod came out long after I left the Six, so I have no knowledge at all of it.
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Post by Gian Vito on Oct 7, 2007 2:19:40 GMT 9
The F106 “Sixshooter” had a M61a1 Vulcan with 650 rounds. The maximum rate of fire was 4500 rounds/minute only, in comparison with 6000-6600 rounds for the same gun in the F104-F105’s fuselages. This wasn’t a problem since the main targets would have been the enemy’s bombers.
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Post by dpillsbury on Oct 15, 2007 5:44:33 GMT 9
Once the MB-1 rack was removed, the gun unit was put in place with a jammer. If I recall, there were 2 rear mounts which flipped over studs in the back of the bay and were tightened down. The front 2 mounts were lobes which were aligned with mounting holes, then bolts were installed. The ammo was carried internally within the gun unit. Then the fun job of boresighting that bad boy came into play! Ammo was loaded/unloaded using a pneumatic driver.
Heh, I remember vividly getting my butt knocked to the ground doing a voltage check on the firing lead when someone bumped my arm.
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Post by ikar on Dec 7, 2007 11:13:19 GMT 9
I remember when I accompanied the Commander to the ammo area and saw that we had more that enough guns to equip our aircraft.
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sixerviper
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Post by sixerviper on Dec 14, 2007 5:17:00 GMT 9
They modified the missile bay doors to accommodate the gun, right? I assume that means they cut holes in the inner doors so the breech and barrels could protrude into the slipstream. What did they do with the inner doors when the gun was removed? Was there just a gaping hole where the gun was? Were there panels you could install to cover up the hole and still allow door operation?
As I've said, I've seen pics of the installation, but have absolutely no first-hand knowledge of it nor have I ever seen a Six with the gun installed.
By the way, the F-105 had the M-61 gun, and the A-7 and F-16 had the M-61A1. What the difference is, I don't know because I'm just a pointyhead. Max firing rate was 6000 rds per minute; the A-7 could also shoot 4000 rpm, pilot selectable.
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Black Bart
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Post by Black Bart on Dec 15, 2007 4:42:27 GMT 9
Hey SixerViper, you are making this complicated. One day a bird came home from IRAN. Now there were always 4 sections on the doors, 2 on the left half and 2 on the right. Counting them as 1-2-3-4, 1 and 4 being the outer door panels and 2 and 3 the inner panels, on the modified bird 2 and 3 were cut in half and bolted back together. in normal operations, they acted normally.
With the gun loaded, the 2 aft sections of doors 2 and 3 were removed. When the missiles were used, the doors operated normally. I do not remember any filler material. I hope this is sufficient. Black Bart
Question! With the gun loaded and bore sighted, how was it test fired? Was a nose sling used?
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Post by dpillsbury on Jan 5, 2008 6:03:22 GMT 9
Bart has the right of it as far as the doors go. I'm almost certain though that there were small "filler doors" that were attached to the outer sections which mated up with the gun itself. But of course I'm old and can't recall squat!!
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Post by sixerviper on Jan 5, 2008 12:41:45 GMT 9
Thanks for all that info.
As an old boresighter, I'd almost bet that they had a calibrated telescope mounted to a length of steel bar with two 20-mm bosses machined in them. They probably stuck this contraption into the barrel that is in position to fire the round. They then would either position a target "cross board" a certain specified distance in front of the nose (a la the F-105's gun boresight), or have a series of mirrors and target crosses mounted on collimators like they did on the A-7 or the F-16. They would then adjust the gun to line up on the appropriate cross. They would then check the other five barrels and adjust the whole gun to get the most accurate pattern. I doubt very seriously if they ever fired the Six's gun on the ground.
So, to see if I understand the doors better: with the gun unmounted, the inner door aft sections were just mounted in place, bolted to the front sections, and the doors operated just like they did before the gun mod. With the gun mounted, the aft sections of the inner doors were removed, and fairings were bolted to the gun pod itself to blend in with the outer doors when they were closed. That would make sense to me.
FYI, and if you care, the Six's 650 rounds of ammo on this gun are still more than the F-16 carried!
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Post by Gian Vito on Jan 29, 2008 3:32:44 GMT 9
Hallo Sixerviper! This is the main difference between a M61 and M61A1 (from Wikipedia): “The development of the F-104 revealed that the T171 Vulcan (later redesignated M61) suffered problems with its linked ammunition, being prone to misfeed and presenting a foreign-object damage (FOD) hazard with discarded links. A linkless feed system was developed for the upgraded M61A1, which subsequently became the standard cannon armament of U.S. fighters.”
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Post by sixerviper on Jan 31, 2008 12:44:20 GMT 9
Gianvito-- I appreciate that--thanks! However, maybe my memory's going bad (killed lotsa brain cells over the years, y'know...), but I remember the F-105's M61 having linkless ammo that retained the spent shells as well as the metal links that held the ammo chain together. So much for "linkless" eh? This is just about the same system that was installed in the M61A1s on the A-7 and the F-16. I was long gone from the Six by the time it got the gun, so I can't speak about it, but I'm not the least bit surprised that its ammo system is basically the same as every jet since the F-104.
Now--does anybody know how the F-106's gun was boresighted?
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Post by Gian Vito on Feb 1, 2008 4:05:57 GMT 9
The XF104 had the M61, The F105D had the M61A1. I'm not sure about the F105B, however the new gun's variant was already available, if i remember. Some books speak about M61 or M61A1 or T171D/E carefree.
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Post by dpillsbury on Feb 18, 2008 0:16:01 GMT 9
Sixer,
Roger that on the boresighting. The cross-haired scope was inserted into the barrel which was in the firing position. A mobile target board was setup at a specific distance from the nose of the aircraft.
You were close on the rear doors. The rear inner doors were removed, the fairings were added to the rear OUTER door which mated up with the gun, the fairings weren't added to the gun itself from what I can recall.
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Post by Black Bart on Feb 19, 2008 2:44:05 GMT 9
I asked, how did they test fire the gun on the ground? Perhaps that was a dumb question!
So here is another one.
You put a Boresight Scope in the firing barrel. You Boresight to the board in front of the Six, most likely the same board that MA-1 used for the IR Head, RADAR Ant, obsolete optical sight, rail, etc. How in the world did you see through the Nose Gear. So you retract the nose gear. How do you see through the nose jack?
Yes all Boresighting is relative to wings level and on the centerline. All Boresighted items went to different spots on the board, but they all merged at the same point in space, waaaay out in front of the Six.
How did they Boresight the gun? Black Bart
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Post by sixerviper on Feb 21, 2008 8:12:15 GMT 9
Here's my guess: Most likely the fixture you inserted into the barrel had a calibrated offset big enough to clear (visually) the fuselage jack and the nose gear. The target board would have an offset cross in the same direction/magnitude as the fixture. They would probably take a sample of all six barrels and then mix and match barrels until they had a decent pattern. Then they would adjust the breech mount bolts to adjust the whole gun to within limits. I'd almost bet that once you boresighted a gun to a particular jet you didn't have to do it again on the next gun installation. However, I have to stress that I never even saw a Six with a gun, much less worked on one. Simple geometry! Congruent angles and parallel lines. Works every time! No need to fire the gun to boresight it.
The F-105B had a gun; most likely it was the same gun the D-model had. The B-model's main difference in the nose area was the lack of a radar of any size other than a simple range-finding radar for the gun system. I state this as one who has worked on maybe one B-model in my life and it was instruments, not Fire Control (The Thud's answer to MA-1)
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