Warbird Information Exchange

Thanks to Gary Norville at American Aero Services, I'm in the process of scanning a very rare Emerson A-15 manual. One of the things I've learned about the A-15 in the last few years of sorting turret parts is that it was not originally supposed to go in the nose of the B-24, it was designed to go in the tail. I've read that the first twenty or so A-15s had already been delivered to the Ford plant when orders came down to move the turret from the back to the front. A team of Emerson and Ford engineers quickly made the needed changes and the A-15 went on to become the "standard" B-24 nose turret. Gary's manual is the only copy I have ever seen and I'm a bit surprised that any A-15 tail turret manuals survived. I doubt any A-15 turrets ever made it onto a production B-24 in the tail stinger position but I wonder if any photos have survived of pre-production testing on a B-24. Are there any WIXers who have seen or have photos?

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Albert Stix Jr.
"Work is the curse of the drinking class"

Hi Albert,

Very interesting information! I have never seen any pictures showing an Emerson A-15 turret in the tail but I have also read that it was originally planned to be located in the tail as well. Could you possibly scan and post a few of the pages showing how the expended cases and links were handled, or you can send them to me via pm if you like. Thanks in advance.

Ron

Ron,
This is the Operations and Service manual for the tail turret version of the A-15 so it is a bit short on details for some parts of the turret. I'm just lucky that Gary Norville acquired this copy from a fellow WIXer. I suspect that both a Parts manual and an Overhaul manual were produced but I've never seen a copy of either one. Here are the only two pages that I found where the link chute and spent case chute are mentioned. I'll keep you posted if I find any more information.

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Albert Stix Jr.
"Work is the curse of the drinking class"

Albert,

Thanks for the excellent information. Would you be able to scan and post similar information concerning the handling of the expended cases and links from the Emerson A-15 nose turret manual?

Thanks.

Ron

Any chance that scanned gem might be available to 3D modeling nurds like me? I've finished an A6A and will have to tackle the A6B at some point. Still, this Emerson "scares" me the most, so I made a start, but there are huge gaps in my understanding.