RECON AIRCRAFT KOREAN WAR

[alexis99]

How do Shooting Star and Sabre Jet Photo-Recon pilots know when they should initiate camera recording if they don't have a periscope viewer in the cockpit?

The F2H-2P Photo Banshee has a set of cameras installed in the nose, and an optical periscope to enable the pilot to see an area of coverage marked with discretes on his scope.

Same with the F9F-5P Photo Panther. In Vietnam you had the RF-101C, RF-4C, RF-8G all with periscopes for the pilot, and the RA-5C with a periscope for the backseater.  But the Shooting Star and Sabre Jets had cameras, but no periscope system. So how did they know if their target was within range of the cameras. Were there discretes on the HUD, or was it done by specific height and timing. 

Does anybody know?

 

Thank you

[mono27]

Same question here. Last year I saw an RF-5E, it had cameras in the nose but no screen in the cockpit, so I don't know how they could take the pictures.

[+yakarov79]

3 hours ago, alexis99 said:

Were there discretes on the HUD

come on.. no HUD back then.

3 hours ago, alexis99 said:

But the Shooting Star and Sabre Jets had cameras, but no periscope system

Map, height, speed, timing, and training.

It is nicely described in one of the Meteors' books, can not remember right now which one.

Edited February 21, 2024 by yakarov79

[alexis99]

Okay, by HUD, I meant the HUD Glass. The thing that the gunsight is projected on. I felt it was more easily understood by everyone as a HUD, but if you want to give me the correct nomenclature, I will use it.

I was thinking that rather than a projection onto the glass, maybe the glass had reticle lines drawn on it, maybe a circle to show you the general area covered by the cameras if you went into a shallow dive. Perhaps they didn't dive, perhaps they kept to the standard  level flight at between 8,000 and 10,000 ft that the F9F-5P operated at . Or maybe the 15,000 ft that the F2H-2P operated at.

I can see that if you have  the target ahead of you and you know your distance to the target, you can calculate when to start recording at your given height. If you fly either the Banshee or the Panther Photo Recon aircraft, you could work out from their results at what point the target is passing into the camera field of view, and when it reaches the Nadir.

I'd love to know which Meteor book. The only one I have is "Meteor from the Cockpit" by Peter Caygill and all I remember is that it was a dangerous aircraft to land because the gears came down separately, not simultaneously, so using the airbrake was a no-no.  In SF2 the Meteor is a MiG-killer, but according to the book  the real one had a lot of problems.

Anyway, I'd better read it again.

[snapper 21]

From F-80 Shooting Star Units of the Korean War
 

‘It was a great photo-recce aircraft but didn’t have a viewfinder in the cockpit. This meant you had to keep regularly banking the plane up on its sides so as to ensure you were over your intended target.

[+Wrench]

as yakarov said; the same as navigating -- stopwatch, compass, map, known height and ground speed

[+yakarov79]

 

1 hour ago, alexis99 said:

Meteor from the Cockpit

no not this....I will try to figure out which one.

 

1 hour ago, alexis99 said:

I felt it was more easily understood by everyone as a HUD

I think most understand what is HUD and what is simple reflector/gyro reflector sight. You also admit that you know the difference...so why build confusion.

you have jet aircraft and piston engine aircraft, aircraft...both can fly...but you feel the difference. 

[Trotski]

Tere is a mod for this , the mod for the Mig 15 photo Bis, I am sure it can be adapted to use on a PR aircraft of any type, but I dont think it would be accurate, as most early gen aircraft had little or no view of what the pilot was photographing, on more modernt aircraft maybe, yes.

[+Wrench]

Yup, think of PR Spits and Mustangs in WW2 "" this looks like about the right spot ... start the camera!"

[alexis99]

15 hours ago, mono27 said:

Same question here. Last year I saw an RF-5E, it had cameras in the nose but no screen in the cockpit, so I don't know how they could take the pictures.

Did it have the Gunsight assembly though? All the photo-recon aircraft in SF2 have the Gunsight and HUD glass intact. I thought that if it was a photo-recon aircraft then they would have been removed, even if a scope was not fitted. The most important thing was getting the valuable cameras and even more valuable film back to base, not dicking around duelling with AA.

[alexis99]

14 hours ago, snapper 21 said:

From F-80 Shooting Star Units of the Korean War
 

‘It was a great photo-recce aircraft but didn’t have a viewfinder in the cockpit. This meant you had to keep regularly banking the plane up on its sides so as to ensure you were over your intended target.

Thanks, I'll get it.

[alexis99]

10 hours ago, Trotski said:

Tere is a mod for this , the mod for the Mig 15 photo Bis, I am sure it can be adapted to use on a PR aircraft of any type, but I dont think it would be accurate, as most early gen aircraft had little or no view of what the pilot was photographing, on more modernt aircraft maybe, yes.

Yes I have mods for all the USAF, USN and Marines aircraft that had periscopes. They were very accurate. It's the ones without periscopes that intrigued me.

[alexis99]

13 hours ago, yakarov79 said:

 

I think most understand what is HUD and what is simple reflector/gyro reflector sight. You also admit that you know the difference...so why build confusion.

you have jet aircraft and piston engine aircraft, aircraft...both can fly...but you feel the difference. 

SF2 calls it a HUD in the Cockpit.ini whether it has discretes or not. I just went along with that.

[+yakarov79]

7 hours ago, alexis99 said:

SF2 calls it a HUD in the Cockpit.ini whether it has discretes or not.

yet, you were asking in your 1st post about the real thing in Shooting Star and Sabre. So I pointed out that no HUD in that period.  

[+Wrench]

it's actually called a 'columator glass" on reflector gunsights. just to clarify <gr>

[alexis99]

14 hours ago, Wrench said:

it's actually called a 'columator glass" on reflector gunsights. just to clarify <gr>

In England we spell it Collimator. But it's no biggie. I am not confused.

[alexis99]

16 hours ago, yakarov79 said:

yet, you were asking in your 1st post about the real thing in Shooting Star and Sabre. So I pointed out that no HUD in that period.  

Yes, sorry about the confusion. From now on, for ease of use I will refer to it as a HUD glass.

[alexis99]

I was thinking that if an aircraft like the Photo-Recon Sabre had no periscope, then the cockpit would look something like my picture below. Since this aircraft had no guns, it seems likely that the valuable Gunsight would have been removed, possibly to be used on another aircraft.

The Collimator glass would remain, since it serves as protection for the pilot.

On the outside view of this aircraft from the Combat Ace Korean Air War package, the two cameras appear to point directly down 90 degrees from the horizontal. I would assume they are wide-angle, so that's generally 60 degrees.

In SF2 you would therefore flick the pretend camera switch (yes of course I've got one) at about 2 to 1 mile from the target at 10,000 ft, approx 400 KIAS.

I need to check this figures with my Banshee and Panther Photo-Recon aircraft which can be fitted with either a 30 degree forward or  90 degree down camera.

(Unfortunately, due to SF2 limitations, it cannot carry the two settings).

So are my speculations correct, or am I totally out-of-whack? I kind of like this version of the cockpit.

 

[alexis99]

On 2/21/2024 at 5:47 PM, snapper 21 said:

From F-80 Shooting Star Units of the Korean War
 

‘It was a great photo-recce aircraft but didn’t have a viewfinder in the cockpit. This meant you had to keep regularly banking the plane up on its sides so as to ensure you were over your intended target.

I found this book on Amazon. They were selling at £50 or £5.90. I popped the £5.90 version into my basket, and that's when the cover of the book was shown.

I suddenly realised I had seen the cover before and went to one of my bookshelves, and there it was. I had been quite obsessed with the Shooting Star 20 years ago, and had accumulated several books on the subject, but had clearly forgotten about them.

I read Chapter 5, TACTICAL RECONNAISSANCE ROLE, but did not see your quote. Perhaps that's in the introduction. And in this chapter, surprisingly, there is no description of Photo Recon technique. However, there are many photos of the RF-80 and not one has the Gunsight assembly. So I feel I am correct in removing that from the cockpit.

What had confused me was the little hole in the nose of the aircraft. I originally assumed it would be for the periscope, but now I know there is no periscope. In fact it's the K-22 Dicing Camera, which was for close-up shots of individual targets. This information comes from a review of the Hobby Boss model. So I guess you nose down and do a dive on specific targets and crack off some film. I find a gaffer tape cross on the windshield helps in lining up.

Anyway thank you all for your help in clearing all of this up