Gee. That's great of a photo, thanks a lot. Nice to see these birds fly again. Just goes to show how well "armoured" aircraft of that time were. By the way, where was the photo taken, was it an airshow, or a privately owned aircraft?
There is a Blog on the internet about this aircraft plus a facebook page.
The family of the original pilot were able to recreate the aircraft using some original parts.
It fly's in shows in the UK.
1264 is a home built machine in homage to the owners grandfather who flew the real 1264 in the Great War. It's pictured at various shows and events. Have a read at https://bristolscout.wordpress.com/ it's quite a story.
"He is wise who watches"
You have such good sources of photographs, Barry!
Notice that the Bristol Scout has a Lewis gun on the right hand side of the fuselage. It was unsynchronized. Part of the account DAve referred to above looks at the combat records of the Bristol Scouts. here is the conclusion.
"Conclusion
It’s an incomplete record – Charles Gordon Bell scored 5 victories in Scouts 4688 and 4675 between 19 September and 30 November 1915, none of which seem to have been recorded.
Most of the combats were broken off because of a jammed gun; apparently there are 120 different ways for a Lewis gun to jam. Hence the vital importance of having the butt within easy reach of the cockpit – and of bringing along a hammer!
And, given that there was no standard mount for a machine gun, it’s intriguing to speculate how many of these Scouts fired through the propeller like 1264. My guess is that quite a few did. We know of two definite exceptions – Lanoe Hawker’s initial combat with an obliquely mounted Lewis gun, and Capt Thompson’s machine on 18 September which was mounted on the top wing.
But the top wing mounting was impossible to reach in flight – the pull-down mounts such as the Foster were only developed later on – so gun jams would have been impossible to fix and one could only fire a single drum (47 rounds).
None had synchronised guns; the technology at this stage was only available to the Germans.
We have demonstrated that the damage caused by a 0.303 round is very limited. And it’s interesting that a year later, in 1917, the pilots of 45 squadron – which was equipped with Sopwith 1 1/2 strutters – regularly turned off the synchronising because it would double the rate of fire and therefore the chances of a hit. They used to make it home okay with up to 20 holes in the propeller!
So perhaps firing through the propeller was more commonly used than is currently thought.
Finally, it’s interesting that RNAS Bristol Scouts were used for bombing as early as July 2015. Were they mounted under the forward fuselage like 1264? I don’t suppose we shall ever know."
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