Possible Norden bombsight part?

[5thwingmarty]

This was among the parts I was given a number of years ago from the wreckage of one of my uncle's B-17s. Most of the parts I was given I could identify from the numbers stamped in them, but this one remained a question. A friend who was a B-17 flight engineer thought it might be a servo for some part of the auto-pilot system, but I just saw an image elsewhere of what was identified as the gyro for a Norden bombsight, and it was very similar to this. Unfortunately I only have this one image of the part, which is about 4" across if I remember correctly.

 

One of the other parts I was given was the remains of the mount for the bombsight, so I know they had the bombsight at some point.

 

Any bombsight experts out there who can tell just from this image?

 

Marty

[5thwingmarty]

I was able to connect with wistarmo who works on Nordens and he confirms it looks like a gyro from a bombsight, although he says they are supposed to be painted black.

[Wistarmo@embarqmail.com]

Here it is. It is the horizontal gyro from a Norden bombsight sighthead. I have removed the bottom gyro bearing cover.

[5thwingmarty]

Thank you for posting this photo. That is clearly the same part and its nice to see it from the same angle as my photo.