STREAM OF BULLETS.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LV, Issue 257, 27 September 1935, Page 5

STREAM OF BULLETS.

FROM PLANE’S MACHINE GUN. PILOT’S AWKWARD SITUATION. With liis plane diving at 200 miles an hour and the machine-gun out of control, firing a continuous stream of bullets at the rate of 660 a ,minute", Flying-Officer Burgess, engaged in target practice near Richmond (N.S.W.. had to act quickly. He thrust his hand into the’ metal cartridge box where the ammunition was stored in a metal clip belt, ahd extracted one bullet. The “feed” was automatically broken. There were a few bullets remaining to be fired before the feed ceased, and then the pilot-quickly pulled his machine out of the dive, at a low altitude. When the machine landed at Rich-mond,.-it was found that the propeller blades had been pierced by 12 bullets. Air force engineers stated that a fabric covering .over the propeller probably stoppediit. from shattering in mid-air. Flyiilg-Officer' Burgess -was flying one'of the new Hawker Demon planes. His .difficulty was that, if he had nulled out" of the dive, the country, directly ahead -.would have been sprayed with bullets. He was firing at a ground target near the Hawkesbury Agricultural College, when a defect occurred in the lock mechanism of the Vickers machinegun, which is synchronised by an oil impulse gear to the engine to enable it to fire through the propeller without hitting the blades.