The overview of construction and selected aspects of testing mounting frames of aircraft machine guns

The installation of a machine gun on board a helicopter requires designing the rigid and durable frame for mounting a machine gun. Additionally there should be considered the limit to the weight of the structure, which forces the payload of a helicopter. The paper presents the overview of frames for mounting firing positions as well as selected cases of strength tests. In most of them the attention in the description was paid to the frames created through the cooperation of the Institute of Aviation and Military Aviation Plant No. 1 in Łódź. The aspects of research on firing positions on the example of a selected frame are also discussed. Furthermore, there is presented the prototype of the mounting frame WLKM (multi-barreled aircraft machine gun) designed by the Institute of Aviation (in the co-operation with Zaklady Mechaniczne Tarnów) with some chosen results of the FEM analyses.