[ARC5] US Pushbutton VHF-AM Control Boxes - Insight Again

[Michael A. Bittner]

Your guess is as good as mine on "how was such training conducted before command sets with a
channel for each formation became available".

I would note that most communications between aircraft in a formation with the instructor in a 5th plane were done with hand signals and head fakes.  However, the instructor would give voice commands over the radio as needed for instruction.  The most famous, or perhaps infamous, example of this is The Saufley Field Tape.  Four instructors intercepted four students on their way to their aircraft and took their place, pretending to be the students.  They then proceed to totally screw up in the air and drive the instructor berserk.  You can hear the victimized instructor yelling his head off over the radio.  It was all recorded on these two tapes:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?hl=nl&gl=NL&v=Snq_CT_7rrk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k5LoTgDfYYg

Mike, W6MAB
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Mike Morrow 
  To: arc5 at mailman.qth.net 
  Sent: Saturday, March 30, 2013 3:46 AM
  Subject: Re: [ARC5] US Pushbutton VHF-AM Control Boxes - Insight Again


  >> During formation training there were often more than four 4-plane
  >> formations + instructor in the air at any one time, all on different
  >> channels,

  I asked:

  > Still...how was such training conducted before command sets with a
  > channel for each formation became available?

  I see now that the answer is obvious:  Only ONE of the available
  command set channels, regardless of the number available, needs
  to be unique to a particular formation.

  Thus, a two-channel MF/HF command set (ARA/ATA or AN/ARC-5), or a
  four-channel VHF command set (AN/ARC-4 or -5 or SCR-522-A), or an
  eight-channel VHF command set (AN/ARC-3), or a ten-channel VHF 
  command set (AN/ARC-1), etc. etc. needs only ONE of the available
  channels set to a frequency that is unique to a specific formation.
  All of the remaining channels can be identical in every aircraft
  and every formation in the sky, even were there 50 of them.

  Mike / KK5F