[ARC5] history

[William Donzelli]

> The Signal Corps came up with the designation SCR-274 for 
> an airborne command set to replace the SCR-183/283 and only Bendix bid 
> on it. The Bendix set was too heavy for fighters and the Chief of the 
> Air Corps, Westover , ruled that the Corps should use the old TRF 
> SCR-283 because of weight. He was not one of the good-buddies who sat 
> around Lewis Hull's stone fireplace in Mountain Lakes, N.J. and talked 
> radio gear.  (The Bendix set was also designated SCR-240, but, again, 
> did not go past the prototype stage.)

I am not home right now, but I thought that the SCR-274-A was a Western
Electric set. I would have to check the SIG5 (the parts show up in it with
real stock numbers, so I guess they had high hopes).

The SCR-240 was produced in reasonable (for 1937) quantites - probably a
few hundred - and may have seen a little service during the war, as a few
dynamotors were produced as replacement units in 1943. A real disaster of
a radio, being large and quite complex. It was also likely a huge
maintenance headache. Interestingly, it is probably the first "black
box" aircraft radio, with all operation of the transmitter and receiver
going thru the control heads.

William Donzelli
aw288 at osfn.org