[ARC5] Re: What did they talk to?

[Bob Macklin]

This is an AEC-3 story:

In early July 1953 in Korea we had a BIG PUSH to destroy as much N. Korean
facilities as we could. I was in a fighter-bomber group.

As soon as a plane would return from a mission we would refuel and rearm it.
These were F-84s and we only used the nose guns. So we had to reload the 4
50s in the nose and hang 2 bombs. Generally 1000lbers.

On one misiion after enginge start a pilot waved that he had a radio
problem. One radioman went up the ladder to the cockpit and the second was
up on the turtle deck removing the panels to swap out the ARC-3 units. No
time to diagnose the problem. Orders were to just "CHANGE THE UNITS". but
the radioman that went up to the cockpit found the real problem. The pilot
had not plugged in his headset. The guy on the back was signaled to button
the radio compartment back up. All this time the jet engine is running. The
radioman on the ladder got down and removed the ladder. The crewcheif
disconnected the APU. The pilot starts down the ramp with a radioman on the
turtledeck. The other radioman is now chasing the airplane in a Dodge
weapons carrier. The airplane gets all the way to the runway and as the
pilot made the turn on to the runway the radioman jumped off. The pilot did
not learn about this until he returned from his mission.

This was the 430th FBS/474th FBG, K2 AFB, Tague Korea. The squadron patch
became a F-84 with a radioman on the back of the airplane.

During the Vietnam war I ran into a pilot from the 430th wearing a jacket
with that patch. That was about 15 years later.

Bob Macklin
K5MYJ/7
Seattle, Wa.

"REAL RADIOS GLOW IN THE DARK"

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "David Stinson" <arc5 at ix.netcom.com>
Cc: <arc5 at mailman.qth.net>; <milsurplus at mailman.qth.net>
Sent: Wednesday, May 04, 2005 7:39 PM
Subject: [ARC5] Re: What did they talk to?


>
>
> Gordon White wrote:
> > Since senior A.R.C. engineers went to England to discuss problems with
> > the Command sets, they were obviously using them. The chief problem was
> > getting off-frequency, so that's when the lock-tune idea came in. They
> > would tune them on the ground and remove the tuning cable from the
> > receiver so the pilot could not diddle with them in the air.
>
> Of course, the documentation supports this, Gordon,
> but I have to say I've wondered about it.  I have several
> SCR-274N receivers, which were basicly the original, un-"Stablized"
> ARA design, and once brought up to original spec
> and allowed to warm up, they're pretty darn stable.
> I had a BC-455 on a couple of weeks ago for two days.
> After the first few hours,
> I never had to move it unless I intended to QSY.
>
> One of ways pilots got "radio trouble" was calling someone once
> or twice and, if not immediately answered, they would
> assume the radios had "drifted" (mostly because their friends
> said "the radios drift") and start cranking away
> on the "coffee grinder."  Since they were off freq,
> their wingman would get no answer and he would start cranking.
> Next thing you know, everyone is using hand signals and
> cussing the radios that "always drift off channel."
>
> Sometimes I wonder if "stability" was blamed to keep from
> blaming the pilots for not following procedure;
> no amount of training and orders would keep them
> from turning that crank.
> Lock-tuning was the answer to both problems.
>
> 73 DE Dave S.
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