A WWII Armourer's shop photo.

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Originally Posted by Daan Kemp

References, etc,

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This is what I read in one of my softcover books and retained it as in the very early WWI days of the air war pilots took up rifles, bricks, pistols plus I seem to recall something along the lines of grappling devices possibly with weight on them to disrupt control of the enemy aircraft.
Until the advent of the interrupter gear which the French designed and the Germans captured an aircraft intact copied and improved on it M.G's were either (On fighters) mounted on the top wing or were mounted in front of the pilot either side of the fuselage to fire outside the propeller arc, so aim off shooting like the royal navy did for target practice in WWII.

I cannot say which book and where sorry Daan as it would be in with the 1500+ titles I have stored in sealed styrofoam boxes inside my shed the reason I retained this information is because it was just so far out of left field using rifles, pistols etc and not bailing out of a doomed aircraft.

Either way F10 the result was the same but if one had the choice of a 7000 foot plunge to the deck or an instantaneous demise then I think the choice would be pretty simple.

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Originally Posted by Alan de Enfield

Canadian Armourers Salisbury Plain - England

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That's an interesting picture of the Canadians working on Ross rifles and a bicycle, a scene not out of place in the late Nineties where Armourers, now called Weapons Techs would also be called upon to repair bicycles. Many bases had three wheeled tricycles for techs to get around and bicycles for exercise, all maintained by our Weapons techs.

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Originally Posted by Alan de Enfield

And for comparison a couple of WW1 Armourers shops :


Armourers in mobile 'Field Workshop'

Armourers at work in a 'Base Workshop' at Calais

Armourers of the 149th Bombing Squadron, St Omar July 1918

Candian Armourers Salisbury Plain - England

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Notice the Gew98 Mauser among the others leaning on the bench. Another photo taken at the same time suggests it has a turned down bolt handle. Not surprising as no ordinary Gew98 would be brought in for overhaul.

Notice the three or more loose bolts on the bench in the second photo: salvaged from condemned or be refitted?

The RFC or RAF shop in the third photo is noteworthy as there you have a couple of pilots or observers in pick up their Lewis guns before a mission. It's been several times remarked on that some of the leading aces/gunners took a very close interest in the maintenance of their guns and ammunition.

And in the fourth photo the bloke with his muzzle in the dirt has one of those wrist watches with a leather cover; not typical equipment for ORs at the time. The portable armourer's chest with the removable pipe legs is also in the first photo, both on the ground and set up on the right side of the photo.

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Originally Posted by Daan Kemp

Could you provide more detail on this please? References, etc, I want to do some research about this.

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Check the records of Everard Calthrop's pre-war parachute designs.
The Superintendent of the Royal Aircraft Factory was refused when he tried requesting a budget for tests in October 1915 and again the following year. Individual pilots tested them successfully in January 1917 at Orfordness.
Trenchard also favoured continuing such tests, and ordered 20 black parachutes which were used for dropping agents behind enemy lines by night.

A Parachute Committee was set up when Germany started issuing parachutes to pilots in mid-1918 and Whitehall at last placed an order too late for use in the war. The reluctance on the part of Britain can be traced to a report of the Air Board: "It is the opinion of the Board that the presence of such an apparatus might impair the fighting spirit of pilots and cause them to abandon machines which might otherwise be capable of returning to base for repair." (Source Ralph Barker, The Royal Flying Corps in World War I).
Arthur Gould Lee's "No Parachute" is also informative, although despite searching for an official RFC policy he never found that minute from the Air Board. Plenty of archives there to search!

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Originally Posted by Sapper740

That's an interesting picture of the Canadians working on Ross rifles and a bicycle, a scene not out of place in the late Nineties where Armourers, now called Weapons Techs would also be called upon to repair bicycles. Many bases had three wheeled tricycles for techs to get around and bicycles for exercise, all maintained by our Weapons techs.

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Source 'Instructions to Armourers 1912 (Reprinted with amendments 1916)'

Duties Of Armourers

Armourers will perform the following duties :-
a) Execute all repairs to the arms (including lances, pistols, swords, and scabbards) in possession of their respective units ; and perform any other work, within their capabilities, required to the equipment of their units, and repairs to helmets and chains, booby chains, lancer cap chains and the brasswork on the lancer cap. Execute repairs to bicycles as directed in paragraph 7.
b) Inspect :
a. Quarterly – All rifles, pistols, sword-bayonets and scabbards in use.
b. Monthly – All bicycles on charge.

In each case defects are to be made good and a brief report of the general result of the examination will be rendered to the Commanding Officer.