[ARC5] [Milsurplus] US Military Aircraft Radios - Opinions

[Mike Hanz]

David Stinson wrote:

>I think the SCR-522 became the "Cro-Magnon" VHF set in 
>the ETO because of the big push to both supply and be
>compatible with the Brits.  
>

Absolutely!  The three volume Signal Corps portion of "The US Army in 
World War II records that unequivocally.  It even documents ad-hoc 
installation in tanks to be able to talk with supporting aircraft.

>The WE-233A wasn't "ready 
>for prime time", but the SCR-522 
>was even more crude and troublesome.
>
>As an aside: I don't personally count the AN/ARC-3 as 
>a major contributor to WWII, since it did not see wide
>use until after the war.  Most USAAF aircraft equiped with VHF
>finished the war with the SCR-522.  
>

In the ETO, certainly.  In the Pacific, I'm not so sure, Dave.  Recall 
that enormous efforts were being made the last six months of the war to 
shift resources toward the Pacific as victory in Europe seemed assured, 
and the AN/ARC-3 was a part of that thrust.  Virtually all of the ARC-3 
production for the USAAF would have gone West, if for no other reason 
than to effectively use the manufacturing capability to the maximum 
before the war ended.

>Aside 2:  According to the documentation I have,
>most of the Navy aircraft that were equipped with
>VHF used the AN/ARC-5 MF/HF/VHF/ARR-2 combo.
>

Which seems paradoxical to me, since the SCR-274N VHF set started off as 
a project by the Army's Aircraft Research Laboratory (ARL) at 
Wright-Patterson, specifically intended to make use of the other 274N 
components.  The Army history mentioned above sez that it gave the 
requirement to ARL in June of 1941.  The Bell Laboratories history 
claims that the Labs designed not only the WE-233 before the war for the 
commercial airlines, but also the AN/ARC-1 and ARC-5 VHF sets, and that 
performance was improved significantly only when they designed and 
introduced the 6AK5 pentode.  Of course, the historian also states that 
the VHF ARC-5 had ten remotely selectable channels, clearly confusing it 
with their ARC-1 effort.  In any case, Western Electric eventually 
produced 35,000 of the Army-instigated VHF ARC-5 sets by the end of the 
war, but apparently only the Navy saw the utility in that for their 
aircraft already fitted with the ARA/ATA and made maximum use of the 
production line.  Like they say, timing is everything... :-)

73,
Mike