[ARC5] Vietnam US Army Aircraft Radio Gear

[Mike Morrow]

Jeep wrote:

> The "High Bird" concept for air-to-air and air-to-ground relay and 
> command/control was very active in VN... 
> ...FAC aircraft had VHF-FM and UHF. The twin Cessna 337s (O-2s) and 
> O-1Es had UHF and FM (typically an ARC-44).  Most O-1s had ARC Type 12 
> equipment as well.

One tends to think of the UH-1 helicopters that came to visually define
the Vietnam war in TV news reports as being plentiful in numbers and used
as a general use-for-everything aircraft.  It amazes me the amount of radio
equipment that was standard on most of these.  Perhaps the best example
are the UH-1D/H models in the late 1960s, which typically carried:

AN/ARC-51BX             UHF-AM command (Collins)
AN/ARC-102, CU-991/AR   MF/HF SSB (Collins) (only on some C&C aircraft)
AN/ARC-131              VHF-FM tactical (Magnavox)
AN/ARC-134              VHF-AM command (Wilcox)
AN/ARN-82               VHF VOR (Collins)
AN/ARN-83               LF/MF ADF (Collins)
AN/APX-72               IFF Mark XII (Admiral and others)
C-1611*/AIC             Interphone (RCA and others)

That is a tremendous amount of sophisticated top-grade avionics in a small
and numerous utility aircraft...equipment that could well serve any large
military aircraft capable of intercontinental navigation.

Mike / KK5F