Editing Synchronization gear (section)

=== The Franz Schneider patent (1913–1914) ===
[[File:Schneider patent 1914.png|thumb|Drawing from the first known patent for a gear to allow an automatic weapon to fire through the blades of a spinning aeroplane propeller]]

Whether directly inspired by Euler's original patent or not, the first inventor to patent a method of firing forward through a ''tractor'' propeller was the Swiss engineer [[Franz Schneider (engineer)|Franz Schneider]], formerly with [[Nieuport]], but by then working for the [[LVG|LVG Company]] in Germany.<ref name=Woodman2/>

The patent was published in the German aviation magazine ''Flugsport'' in 1914, meaning that the concept became public knowledge at an early stage.<ref name=VanWyngarden7>VanWyngarden 2006, p. 7.</ref> The linkage between the propeller and the gun is achieved with a spinning drive shaft, rather than a reciprocating rod. The impulses needed to operate the trigger, or in this case to prevent the trigger from operating, are produced by a cam wheel with two lobes at 180° apart situated at the gun itself since firing is to be interrupted by both blades of the propeller. No attempt was made (so far as is known) to build or test an actual operating gear based on this patent, which attracted little or no official interest at the time.<ref name=Woodman2/> The exact form of the synchronization gear fitted to Schneider's [[LVG E.I]] of 1915 and its relationship to this patent is unknown, since no plans survive.<ref name=Woodman8>Woodman 1989, p. 184.</ref>