[ARC5] AN/CRC-7, and Other VHF Use

[Robert Eleazer]

One book, "War Pilot" by Richard Newkirk, I believe, says that the earliest known combat use of a URC-4 was in Korea when the crew of a downed USAF H-5 helicopter (like the one in Bridges of Toko Ri) used a URC-4 to contact a flight of Australian P-51's.  Unfortunately, I no longer have the book, having made the error of lending it to a bunch of helicopter pilots.

I assume that the URC-4 was only produced in the 121.5/243 MHZ version.  And I also assume that the P-51's probably had SCR-522.  The USAF F-51's refurbed for Korea had ARC-3's and BC-453's that replaced the SCR-522 and BC-1206, but I would guess the Aussies still had SCR-522, since many of those were in use in Korea as well.

So perhaps they were using both 121.5 and 140.58 at the time of the Korean War.

Speaking of early helicopters, look at this photo and see what you can spy behind the seats:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/10/Sikorsky_R-6A_USAF.jpg

Wayne