Editing Synchronization gear (section)

==== The Constantinesco synchronization gear ====
[[File:C.C. gear.png|thumb|U.S. Patent office drawing for C.C. Synchronization gear. The pump-like component was the oil reservoir, and was situated in the cockpit. Lifting its handle ensured there was adequate hydraulic pressure to operate the gear]]

Major Colley, the [[Chief Experimental Officer]] and Artillery Adviser at the War Office Munitions Invention Department, became interested in [[George Constantinescu|George Constantinesco's]] theory of [[Wave Transmission]], and worked with him to determine how his invention could be put to practical use, finally hitting on the notion of developing a synchronization gear based on it. Major Colley used his contacts in the [[Royal Flying Corps]] and the [[Royal Artillery]] (his own corps) to obtain the loan of a Vickers machine gun and 1,000 rounds of ammunition.

Constantinesco drew on his work with rock drills to develop a synchronization gear using his wave transmission system.<ref name=Woodman131>Woodman 1989, p. 195.</ref> In May 1916, he prepared the first drawing and an experimental model of what became known as the Constantinesco Fire Control Gear or the "C.C. (Constantinesco-Colley) Gear".  The first provisional patent application for the Gear was submitted on 14 July 1916 (No. 512).

At first, the meticulous Constantinesco was dissatisfied with the odd slightly deviant hit on his test disc. It was found that carefully inspecting the ammunition cured this fault (common, of course, to all such gears); with good quality rounds, the performance of the gear pleased even its creator.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.inventricity.com/the-sound-man-george-constantinesco|title=The Sound Man – George Constantinesco}}</ref> [[Archibald Low|A. M. Low]] who commanded the [[British unmanned aerial vehicles of World War I|Royal Flying Corps secret Experimental Works at Feltham]] was involved in the testing. The system was perfected by Constantinesco in collaboration with the [[Fleet Street]] printer and engineer Walter Haddon at the Haddon Engineering Works in Honeypot Lane, Alperton.<ref>"The Dawn of the Drone" Steve Mills 2019 Casemate Publishers. p 233</ref> The first working C.C. gear was air-tested in a B.E.2c in August 1916.<ref name=Sweetman1>Sweetman 2010, p. 111.</ref>

The new gear had several advantages over all mechanical gears: the rate of fire was greatly improved, the synchronization was much more accurate, and above all it was readily adaptable to any type of engine and airframe, instead of needing a specially designed impulse generator for each type of engine and special linkages for each type of aircraft.<ref name=Cheesman3>Cheesman 1960, p. 180.</ref> In the long run (provided it was properly maintained and adjusted) it also proved far more durable and less prone to failure.<ref name=Woodman14>Woodman 1989, p. 196.</ref>

[[No. 55 Squadron RAF|No. 55 Squadron's]] [[Airco DH.4|DH.4s]] arrived in France on 6 March 1917 fitted with the new gear,<ref name=Cheesman3/> followed shortly after by [[No. 48 Squadron RAF|No. 48 squadron's]] [[Bristol F.2|Bristol Fighters]] and [[No. 56 Squadron RAF|No. 56 Squadron's]] [[Royal Aircraft Factory S.E.5|S.E.5s]]. Early production models had some teething troubles in service, as ground crew learned to service and adjust the new gears, and pilots to operate them.<ref name=Woodman14>Woodman 1989, p. 196.</ref> It was late in 1917 before a version of the gear that could operate twin guns became available, so that the first Sopwith Camels had to be fitted with the Sopwith-Kauper gear instead.

From November 1917 the gear finally became standard; being fitted to all new British aircraft with synchronized guns from that date up to the [[Gloster Gladiator]] of 1937.

Over 6,000 gears were fitted to machines of the Royal Flying Corps and the Royal Naval Air Service between March and December 1917.  Twenty thousand more "Constantinesco-Colley" gun synchronization systems were fitted to British military aircraft between January and October 1918, during the period when the [[Royal Air Force]] was formed from the two earlier services on April 1, 1918. A total of 50,000 gears were manufactured during the twenty years it was standard equipment.