Quote:
Originally Posted by Luckypants
Sorry a few factual errors. Spitfires and Hurricanes were both armed originally with eight .303 Browning machine guns, they were not fitted with cannon until 1941/42. Also the Hispano cannon were drum fed not belt fed. So if referring to the length of the ammunition belts it must refer to the Browning machine gun equipped planes. If this is the case, then both the Spitfire and Hurricane had enough ammunition for 16 seconds continuous firing (not 7 seconds) and generally Hurricanes always had a little more.
I really don't think this is the origin of the phrase 'the whole 9 yards' and wikipedia seems to agree http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_whole_nine_yards
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Really?! oh darn it. I really liked that story too. yes I was referring to the browning machine guns, I thought they were referred to as cannon too, because they were pretty big. I was remembering a story from way back when we went to the Imperial War Museum as a kid.