[MilAir] LL-46

[Clarke, Tom AIR4.0P NATOPS]

Another nice day for "crashes and dashes" at Patrick!  

You can clearly see the APU doors are closed on this shot. The exhaust
door is just below and forward of the bubble window at the
Navigator/Communicator station and when open, directs the exhaust
upwards. You can see the intake door on the bottom, just aft of the nose
gear doors, also closed. Immediately forward of the bottom side of the
exhaust door is the heat exchanger outlet for the right hand air
conditioner package.  The air inlet is under the 514 and is a NACA type
surface air inlet. The air conditioning system uses a bootstrap
(expansion turbines and heat exchangers - no Freon) system, using bleed
air from the engines. There is a second system on the left side.

On a hot, humid day, like Jax in summer, if the FE sets manual, max cold
on the AC, it can "snow" in the aircraft and little ice pellets come
shooting out of the gaspers (vents) in the aircraft.  The first time you
see it, it is kind of weird!

MilCom Content:  Do you notice VHF or UHF as primary at Patrick?  It
seems like the pointy nosed, go fast guys use UHF and the multi-motored
folks (wannabe airline pilots!) use victor.  We actually have a rule
here at Pax, that UHF is the primary and VHF only if uniform is inop. We
often will have 2 runways in use, helos in the grass and Mk 7 catapults
going at once! It helps your SA to have everyone on the same freq, that
way you hear both sides of the comms. It is not common in the states,
but in Europe many facilities have a repeater that retransmits VHF to
UHF and vice versa.

Tom
Pax River