[ARC5] Collins ARC-2 Going Cheap

[Tom Clarke]

Good grief, I have "dissed" the entire VS community in one blow!  Of 
course, I wasn't even thinking of mighty "Stoof" as an attack bird.

I flew the P-2 and P-3 (among others!)and we were "an airliner with a 
bomb bay" that also could carry rockets and later on, missiles.  When 
they made the P-3 "offensive",  that meant we were more than just pests, 
now the baddies might shoot at us!

Our P-2s had one ARC-94 and one ARC-38A, and some still had the ARR-15 
installed.  The P-3 was thoroughly modern with a brace of ARC-94s and a 
ARR-41 monitor receiver.  I recall that the P-2's ARC-27 UHF box was a 
mechanical marvel (unless you were a tech and had one to fix!), but the 
P-3 sported the ARC-51 or 52 as I recall. I remember it was a lot more 
reliable than the old 27.

The latest P-3s have newer HF radios to support the data modes, but 
still are compatible with good old HF voice for the oceanic reports!

The new P-8 (B737-700/900), another airliner with a bomb bay, will only 
have one HF radio.  I suspect the tactical comms have gone over to 
SATCOM with HF as backup.  The HF will have SELCAL (finally!)so the 
cockpit bubbas won't have to listen to static and noise while waiting 
for New York Radio to call them with that altitude amendment!

Tom/W4OKW



On 9/3/2010 8:09 PM, Mike Morrow wrote:
>> The S-2, C-1 and E-1 also had the ARC-2 installed. Semi-Warcraft!
>> They don't shoot!
>
> But Tom, the S-2 was a weapons delivery aircraft in most of its
> configurations.  I was on the USS Intrepid (CVS-11) in 1971, which
> carried S-2E Trackers.  I believe they could carry rockets, torpedoes,
> and depth bombs.
>
> That's "shooting" to me!
>
> These front-line S-2E aircraft probably had something like the AN/ARC-94
> in place by 1971, unlike those training-use TS-2A aircraft that had only
> left-over gear like the AN/ARC-2, AN/ARC-27, AN/ARN-6, and R-23/ARC-5
> from their mid- to late-1950s carrier careers.
>
> The TS-2A aircraft didn't seem to get much respect at NAS Corpus.  While
> I was sitting in one of the crewmember positions back aft, I started reading
> all the graffiti written on the control panel framework where all the sub-
> hunting gear had been ripped out.  One said "Built by the Brooklyn Railroad
> Scrap Iron Company, 1913".  The one that I liked best pointed to the escape
> hatch in the overhead and said "Do Not Exceed Mach 2 With Hatch Open".
>
> Mike / KK5F
> ______________________________________________________________
> ARC5 mailing list
> Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/arc5
> Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm
> Post: mailto:ARC5 at mailman.qth.net
>
> This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net
> Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html
>