[ARC5] RU, GF, and What Else?

[Mike Morrow]

Wayne wrote:

> Unfortunately the references on the SBD and TBD are less informative in
> respect to the radios.  Anyone know what those airplanes would have been
> equipped with in that timeframe?  Would they have had RU and GF equipment
> as well as some other radio gear?

Mike Hanz has a document showing radio equipment that was typical of about 100 USN aircraft before WWII and early into WWII.

 http://aafradio.org/docs/1943-Navy-radio-gear.html

A general observation is that early WWII USN single-engine aircraft typically had either "command" type of gear (if there was only one crewman) or "liaison" type gear (if there was a gunner/radio operator)...but NOT both.

For example, Mike's document shows a GF-8/RU-13 command-type set plus ZB-* homing for F4F-4, and a GP-6/RU-11 liaison-type set plus ZB-* homing for a SBD-3.  (This info also indicates that both aircraft had 14 vdc power, but the SBD-3 also had 800 Hz ac power as well.  The SB2C-1 is shown with GP-6/RU-13, indicating 28 vdc power.)

[Interesting(?) Sidenote:  The Type K Airship is shown with a GF-12/RU-17 command set and a GP-7/RU-19 liaison set...a classic example of the RU receiver's ladt hurrah.  It is very odd, this baseless notion some here have, that the RU-series receivers was some sort of obsolete, poor-performing, "tempermental", stop-gap set.  It was none of that.  RUs were used in almost every USN airborne installation for a decade after 1931, and by 1934 the final design was a very modern TRF.  Just look at the tabulation in Mike's document of where the RU was found, circa 1941!]

Just a little later in the war aircraft like the F4F would likely use the later ATA/ARA (followed by the AN/ARC-5) command-type set.  Later too, aircraft like the SBD would likely use the ATC(AN/ART-13)/ARB liaison-type set.  During that time VHF-AM command sets would show up on both aircraft types, with R-28/T-23 in AN/ARC-5 racks, and AN/ARC-4 (followed by AN/ARC-1) in the larger aircraft.

Mike / KK5F