Editing Synchronization gear (section)

==== The Fokker ''Zentralsteuerung'' gear ====
[[File:Zentralsteuerung01.jpg|thumb|Twin guns synchronized by the ''Zentralsteuerung'' system in a [[Fokker D.VIII]] fighter. The "pipes" connecting the guns and the engine are flexible drive shafts]]

This was designed in late 1916 and took the form of a new synchronization gear without any rods at all. The cam that generated the firing impulses was moved from the engine to the gun; the trigger motor in effect now generated its own firing impulses. The linkage between the propeller and the gun now consisted of a flexible drive shaft directly connecting the end of the engine camshaft to the trigger motor of the gun.<ref name=Hegener2>Hegener 1961, p. 32.</ref> The firing button for the gun simply engaged a clutch at the engine which set the flexible drive (and thus the trigger motor) in motion. In some ways this brought the new gear closer to the [[Synchronization gear#The Franz Schneider patent (1913–1914)|original Schneider patent (q.v.)]].

A major advantage was that the adjustment (to set where on the propeller's disc each bullet was to impact) was now in the gun itself. This meant that each gun was adjusted separately, an important feature, since twin synchronized guns were not set to be fired in strict unison, but when they were pointing at the same point on the propeller disc. Each gun could be fired independently, since it had its own flexible drive, linked to the engine camshaft by a junction box, and having its own clutch. This provision of a quite separate set of components for each gun also meant that a failure in the gear for one gun did not impinge on the other.

This gear was available in numbers by mid 1917, in time for installation on the [[Fokker Dr.I]] triplane and all later German fighters. In fact it became the standard synchronizer for the Luftstreitkräfte for the remainder of the war,<ref name=Hegener3>Hegener 1961, p. 33.</ref> although experiments to find an even more reliable gear continued.<ref name=Woodman7/>