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Concept
Foster mounting
Summary
The Foster mounting was a device fitted to some fighter aircraft of the Royal Flying Corps during the First World War. It was designed to enable a machine gun (in practice, a Lewis Gun) to fire over, rather than through the arc of the spinning propeller. It took several forms when applied to different aircraft types, but all shared the feature of a quadrant shaped I-beam rail on which the gun could slide back and down in one movement. The primary purpose was to facilitate the changing of spent ammunition drums, but some pilots also found that the mounting permitted the gun to be fired directly upward or at an angle, permitting a fighter aircraft to attack an opponent from beneath.
Before the ready availability of a reliable synchronization gear, several methods were tried to mount a machine gun in a position from which it would be able to fire past rather than through the arc of the propeller. Even after reasonably reliable synchronization was available for closed bolt weapons such as the Vickers gun there were reasons for avoiding synchronization. Even the best synchronization gears were liable to failure, and there were special hazards in firing incendiary and explosive ammunition through the propeller arc. Some weapons, such as the Lewis gun, were not easy to synchronize at all. An alternative was to fire over the propeller, especially in the case of a biplane aircraft, where the structure of the upper wing formed a convenient base. A drawback was that such a mount was less robust than a mounting on the forward fuselage, and the accuracy of the gun, especially at long range, was affected by vibration. The main difficulty, however, was the need for the pilot or gunner to have access to the breech of the gun, to change drums or belts as well as to clear jams.
The earliest mountings for a Lewis gun on the top wing of a light scout aircraft were fixed, and either the inaccessibility of the breech was accepted, or drums were changed by the pilot standing up (in some cases having to stand on his seat) to reach the gun.
Official source
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