The Incredible Way Fighter Pilots Used To Fire Bullets Through A Plane's Propellers

Ever wonder how fighter pilots used to fire hundreds of bullets effortlessly through the propellers on the front of their planes? You should know the story behind the interesting mechanism designed to allow fighter pilots to fire from their natural point of view without both having to pay attention to flying and aiming a separate gun. 

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During the course of both World War I and World War II, fighter pilots took part in thousands of dogfights and ground assault operations that required the use of their onboard guns.

To allow pilots to aim from their own point of view, engineers had to find a way to shoot bullets without completely destroying the propellers usually located on the front of the fighter plane. 

Is it possible that the bullets could fly between the propellers naturally on their own?

Of course not. While some of the bullets would make it between the propellers, inevitably some bullets would make contact eventually. Engineers had to find a way to sync the bullets (that fire at a rate specific to the gun being used) and the propellers (that vary in speed depending on numerous factors). 

A remarkably simple mechanism was designed to make this work...

The solution? Synchronization gear. 

This mechanism prevents bullets from being fired when the propeller is in front of the gun. Pictured here is a diagram showing the "Stangensteuerung" sync mechanism. As you can see here, a cam follower is in place to track the location of the propeller in space and can either block or enable the gun's trigger. 

There are several variations of this mechanism, but the basic idea stands across most of them. 

This is what it looks like when sync gear is properly functioning. 

In this picture, you can see that the bullets are fully clear of the propeller. What a simple solution to such a complicated problem!

Some guys actually tried to recreate a fighter plane propeller to show firsthand how sync gear works in slow motion...

In an awesome video demonstration, The Slow Mo Guys show us exactly what it looks like to have a bullet pass perfectly between the propeller blades when sync gear is in place. 

These guys were able to get such an amazing slow motion shot using a Phantom v2511 camera that captures video between 28,500 fps and 120,000 fps. That's cool on its own!

They also recorded what happens when the sync gear isn't functional.

You guessed it, some of the bullets rip right through the propeller. 

That is some pretty cool vintage military technology if you ask me...

Here is the video from The Slow Mo Guys themselves!

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