[ARC5] More speculation on MF Command transmitters

[Robert Eleazer]

In WWII the US military developed a specification for anti-G suit valves that included a very tight limit on external leakage while delivering full allowed output pressure.  Air Force and private company engineers worked dilgently to meet that specification for the next three decades.  Finally, around 1977 a study into the specification revealed that the leakage limit was based on the air supply of WWII fighter aircraft, which in some cases consisted of only a rubber bag with the aircraft battery sitting atop it.  Those aircraft could not afford much leakage; they wanted most of the air in the suit to go back in the rubber bag.  The leakage limit had been invalid since the P-80, with its copious quantities of pressurized air, became the USAAF's front line fighter aircraft in 1945 - but the leakage limit carried on until at least 1978.

So, bureaucracies do not always even know why they are doing something technically challenging and rarely even wonder if it is stupid.

Wayne
WB5WSV       

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