gunsight question

It's molded in clear so that you can paint the rest the rest of the gunsight, but keep the relfector clear... That's the piece stiking up at angle.  THere's a "picture" that gets shown up through the tube in the vertical that reflects off the clear glass and back towards the pilot, hence the term, "reflector Gunsight". When the power's off to the sight, it's just a piece of clear glass in front of your face...

Here's a Spitfire gunsight, rather typical of all early war reflector gunsights.. The lead-computing sights of later on were a little more complicated, but over ran on the same prinipal..

When the sight's on, the stadia and range lines would appear in the clear glass.

 Mark 8 sight with power on and simulated target

Thanks Hans....shame on me....I didnt notice that the reflector piece is not molded on the sight, that threw me off and made the sight look strange. Now that I see your pic it all makes sense....I couldnt find a pic on the net from your angle... I guess I will need to add a thin piece of acetate to complete the sight..

Thanks

Carlos

Good call... An acetate reflector will always beat the molded-in reflector, IMHO... Molded parts are always outta scale... The actual reflector on the 1/1 scale sight is less than a 1/4 inch thick...

Hello;

On the subject of sights I was wondering how the sights on the F3F-1 worked. It looks like a telescope to look through but there are ring sights on either side of the tube.

Bill

That's exactly what it is, a 2-or3-power telescope with crosshairs and stadia lines for ranging..

I replaced my tamiya corsairs sight with the lovely Quickboost sight. extremely nice unit, comes with acetate reflector. Ya get three for $6.

Got a picture, HK? Wanna see that.. My eyes are starting to go bad scratchbuilding 1/48 sights...

Hans are you getting soft in your old age... buying AM resin instread of scratch building?

US Mk.8 gunsights

US K-14 gun sights

US N-3A/B Gun Sights

Hans are you getting soft in your old age... buying AM resin instread of scratch building?

Wish it wasn't true, but I had to give up on the gunsight I was working on in the Twin Mustang... Just can't see it...

However, if I find the mad money for an optivisor soon, I'll stick with scratchbuilding and this AM crap will be a just a momentary lapse, eh?

Hans von Hammer

 

 

Hans are you getting soft in your old age... buying AM resin instread of scratch building?

 

Wish it wasn't true, but I had to give up on the gunsight I was working on in the Twin Mustang... Just can't see it...

However, if I find the mad money for an optivisor soon, I'll stick with scratchbuilding and this AM crap will be a just a momentary lapse, eh?

I'm all screwed up because my winkers are bad so I have an optivisor too over the Buddie Holly's.

Bondowander: some years ago I was the lead exec on a major remodel of a group of office buildings in SF.

Actually still am.

But, I got to be friends with the Chief Engineer, ie the guy who ran the complex. Now, that's no small thing. He had a couple dozen engineers working for him, a whole floor of one of the towers set aside as his HQ, etc.

Turns out he collects... Norden Bombsights. And repairs and restores them. Now, that's a really big deal to me, and they are kept carefully in a controlled area of, not gonna tell you which building.

I've actually operated the Norden from "FiFi" (although it wasn't slaved to the aircraft and autopilot), I was able to call up the corrections from the IP  to bomb release on the airshow bomb-runs... I've also used the bombsight trainer, which is a Norden mounted on a frame about 10 feet above a moving map that scrolls past under your chair... The "pilot" sits up there with you and uses a yoke to make left and right corrections. We played with it for a couple days after restoring it for the American Airpower Heritage Museum.

Hi, Hans.

My name's Justin Sheedy, I'm an author, and I'd like to ask for your permission to use this magnificent image re the Spitfire gunsight on the front cover of an new E-book that I am soon to release. Please see details of my new book, "Nor the Years Condemn", a WW2 (air war) historical fiction, at the link below.

http://crackernight.com/2010/02/10/justin-sheedys-next-book-ghosts-of-the-empire/

I would potentially like to use this image in place of the RAAF 'eagle' Badge as seen on the cover at the link: Unfortunately the Australian Government recently declined permission for me to use this image as it cannot be used for 'commercial purposes'.

Please do let me know, Hans.  (If you agree to my using your image on my new E-book cover, I'd obviously include a credit to you in the Acknowledgements page of the book.)

My email is justinsheedy@hotmail.com.

More draft book covers here: http://crackernight.com/2011/08/12/a-request-for-good-advice-re-new-e-book-nor-the-years-condemn-by-justin-sheedy/

Your sincerely

Justin Sheedy

Email inbound, Justin...