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At the end of World War Two, the United States Army began to consider new directions for future military aircraft guns. The higher speeds of jet-engined fighter aircraft meant that achieving an effective number of hits would be extremely difficult without a much higher volume of fire. While captured German designs (principally the Mauser MG213 ) showed the potential of the single-barrel revolver cannon, practical rate of fire was still limited by ammunition feed and barrel wear concerns. The Army wanted something better, combining extremely high rate of fire with exceptional reliability.
In response to this requirement, General Electric Armament Division resurrected an old idea: the multi-barrel Gatling gun. The original Gatling gun had fallen out of favor because of the need for an external power source to rotate the barrel assembly, but the new generation of turbojet-powered fighters offered sufficient electrical power to operate the gun, and electric operation offered superior reliability to a gas operated weapon. With multiple barrels, the rate of fire per barrel could be lower than a single-barrel revolver cannon while still giving a superior total rate of fire.
The Army issued GE the contract in 1946 for "Project Vulcan," a six-barrel weapon capable of firing 6,000 rounds per minute. Although European designers were moving towards heavier 30mm weapons for better hitting power, the U.S. chose 20mm ammunition, trading projectile weight for rate of fire and muzzle velocityA gun's muzzle velocity is the speed at which the projectile leaves the muzzle of the gun. This contrasts with the terminal velocity, the speed of the projectile just before it hits its target. Muzzle velocities range from subsonic for some pistols to ove. The first GE prototypes of the T-171 were ground-fired in 19491949 is the common year starting on Saturday. see link for calendar) Events January-February January 4 RMS Caronia of the Cunard Line departs Southampton for New York on her maiden voyage January 4 February 22 Series of winter storms in Nebraska, Wyoming,.
The first production aircraft to adopt the new cannon was the F-104 StarfighterLockheed F-104G Starfighter Description RoleMulti-role fighter aircraft Crewone Powerplant 1x General Electric J79-GE-11A turbojet Thrust48 kN (10,000 lb) dry, 69. 37 kN (15,600 lb) in afterburner Dimensions Length16. 66 m54 ft 8 in Wingspan6. 36 m 21 ft, which finally entered operational service in 1958This is a list of aviation-related events from 1958: Events Gulfstream Aerospace founded in Savannah, Georgia, USA. London Gatwick Airport opens after two years of extensive reconstruction. It is the first multimodal airport in the world, with direct rail.
The development of the F-104 revealed that the 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. It is likely to remain in service for at least another decade.