A simple but e ffecti ve means of learning to operate a gun turret is
shown in this shot of the Spotlight Trainer used at Tyndall Field. A
lamp , right foreground , throws a moving beam of light on the wall
while the student must "track" it with a photo-cell gun lined up with
his gun sights. When the cell is aimed at the spot of light it registers
a "hit" on an automatic counter.
COIN
MACHINE
REVIEW
Photo-Electric Gun Sharpens
Aerial Gunners' Eyes
JU1.Y
7
FOR
1943
By Pvt. Robert Latimer
U. S. Army Air Forces
T
HOSE nickel·operated "electric eye" machine guns that you
see in arcades, amusement parlors and other places, have
grown up.
In a more elaborate form, they're being used to sharpen the
shooting eyes of the aerial gunners that Uncle Sam's Air Forces
are training at the nation's largest flexible gunnery school at
Tyndall Field, Fla.
Here, too, they are used to accustom the gunners to operating
the complicated power turrets on which are mounted the same
type of machine guns with which those gunners some day will
protect a big bomber as it lays its "eggs" on an enemy target.
A turret, exactly like those used on bombers except that it is
"armed" with a photo-electric cell mounted between the barrels
of the two machine guns which normally are used, is fitted aboard
a truck and driven into position before a white screen.
On the screen, a spot of light is projected and moved slowly
back and forth and up and down. The gunner aims his "weapon"
by operating the turret and, when the spot comes into his sights,
pulls the trigger.
If his aim is accurate, a "hit" is recorded on an electric count-
er when the spot of light causes the photo-electric cell to close an
electric circuit. The gunner's score is automatically registered hy
the counter.
In the gunner's squadron day-room, he'll find another and
smaller electric eye-gun, a duplicate of those found in amuse-
ment places, but which requi res no nickels.
He can try his skill at it anytime he desires during his hours
away from the firing ranges and classrooms of the gunnery school.
These smaller guns are in one way, even more realistic, because
the target is a miniature Nazi or Jap plane which moves across
the screen.
As if all this firing weren't enough, a good many of the gun-
ners here drop into amusement places in Panama City when off
duty and shoot the same gadgets on a husman's holiday.
And they have to pay a nickel for 30 shots, too.
•
The day room of
a gunnery student
squadron at Tyndall
Field is equipped
with spotlight guns
and electric eye air-
planes to shoot at.
Gunners are shown
brushing up on their
firing practice in off-
duty hours. Model
planes and silhou-
ettes on the ceiling
are part of the con-
stant training in air-
craft recognition.
In class rooms, rec-
reation halls, on the
firing range and
even in the Post Ex-
change , students find
guns of all kinds.
Here in the PX at
Fort Myers two students spend some time on the familiar "nickel in
the slot" machine that shoots down hostile airplanes.