[ARC5] Re: White, Anglo-Saxon Protestant Ferrying Command Radios

[David Stinson]

(copied to the list for general information) 
(Re: WASP radios)

Subject: White, Anglo-Saxon Protestant Ferrying Command Radios


> Or something like that ... I know you've mentioned these before, but I 
> still don't know what they are.  

Thanks for writing.
WASP:
Womens Army Service Pilots.
Special interest of mine, since I have four daughters.
Excellent web site:

http://www.wingsacrossamerica.us/

Very interesting group of ladies.
They did much more than just ferry aircraft, 
and are underappreciated.
I have a nice, signed autobiography and letter 
from one of the WASPs.

I don't know of any place on the net 
that has details on these ferrying radios.
Perhaps it's time to make one ;-).
There are so many and the lash-ups are so varied
that collecting them is a seperated catagory in itself, IMHO.
I have them from neat, clean boxed sets to cobbled-up
jobs with bailing-wired handles and rough-bent metal 
battery boxes.  They vary from expensive, A-1 quality sets like
the RCA AVT/AVR series to "Economy" sets like the Rangers.
(Note that the famous RCA AVR-20/AVT-112 set 
  isn't a  ferrying configuration;  it was for spotter aircraft
  and light transports.  Both General Patton's and
  General Eisenhower's personal L-series puddle jumpers
  had these installed.  Yes; I have photos).

The services learned early that putting radios in non-bomber aircraft
at the factory was a mistake; they often had to be ripped out
in the field and "their kind" of radios installed, wasting the 
time, labor and the new equipment, which usually got left in a big pile.  
So ferry pilots carried their own,
removable radios and let the techs in theater install whatever
they had that would work with their unit.
The idea was to have a small, portable set the ferrying pilots could 
rig up in the aircraft, then install it in the next one or
carry it back to base on the train as luggage.
Several makes and types were adapted.
The flight leader would have a low-power HF transmitter 
and an LF receiver for talking to towers and controllers, 
who generally listened on 3105 KC 
or Army Airways (44-something KC) 
and transmitted back to the aircraft on LF- typically 278 KC. 
The other aircraft in the flight would have only a receiver,
for listening to weather,  tower instructions and DFing.
Flight members without transmitters
communicated with the flight leader using hand signals.
The little transmitters typically run 2 to 10 watts out.
Some ran on battery, some on vibrator supplies.  
Never seen one that used a dynamotor, 
which would have defeated the idea of the set being hand-portable.

I have a matched set of Lear radios- the "leader" set with transmitter 
and the "flight member" set with just receiver.  The big set is 
WASP connected, so is a treasure to me.  Both are in 
nice wooden cases.  Both will get long, slow, loving restoration ;-).

More later- gotta get to work.
73 Dave S.