[ARC5] UK-Style Pushbutton Control Boxes - Some Opinions

[Mike Morrow]

John wrote:

>You can see what channel you are on almost without actually looking at it.
>Not so for a rotary switch. If I were flying in a dogfight, I'd strongly
>prefer not to have to look aside, even for an instant.

Sorry John...I've heard that before.  Also:  "It's easier to select channels
while engaged in combat."  I believe such to be "just maybe" rationalizations
for an irrational (or at least, very sub-optimal) design.

A pilot would not play with radios during a heated engagement.  It's not
likely that much channel swapping would be taking place in flight just
before, or at the start of, or during an engagement.  I suspect that all
aircraft in a flight about to begin combat would be on the desired command
channel well beforehand.  If some sort of "Pipsqueak" operation was desired,
the wiring in the SCR-522-A and the BC-608 automatically selected the
channels of operation when the BC-608 clock was started.  No other pilot
interaction was required there.  No similar PB system was implemented for
the SCR-595-A Mark III or SCR-695-A Mark III/G IFF controls, which may have
needed to be activated in emergency mode in a hurry.  These IFFs were a
British design too...but without PBs.

One must ask, when arguing for a purpose behind push button designs:

(1) Why were US multi-channel MF/HF command sets (ARA/ATA, SCR-274-N, AN/ARC-9,
RA-10DB/TA-12B, ARB/ATB, etc.) NEVER equiped with this "advantage"?
(2) Why did the US quickly discard this feature, which was *already* in existence,
before end of WWII for the AN/ARC-5, and before the Korean War for the AN/ARC-3.
The SCR-522-A doubtless only retained the design due to being obsolete.
(3) Why was such a PB design *never* used for the AN/ARC-1, AN/ARC-12, AN/ARC-27,
or ANY other command set?  Jets fly faster and require even quicker resposes than
WWII prop aircraft, nicht wahr?
(4) Is it much easier to determine that a push button is depressed, as opposed
to glancing at a selector switch?  I have all these controls, and I think it is
not easier.  But if this were an important condition to sense visually, it could
be more easily and effectively implemented by a larger switch pointer and scale
on frequency select switches.

Mike / KK5F