[Milsurplus] Radio-less trainers

[jhaynes@alumni.uark.edu]

And of course the T-6 was a fairly high-level trainer; the students 
started on smaller planes.  I remember from mid 1950s the CAP had some
little planes like L-16s.  Some of these were not only radio-less but
had no electrical system at all.  You had to spin the prop by hand to
start the engine; and I guess in those days you didn't have to have any
lighting if you didn't fly at night.  I've seen some little 
battery-operated receive-only LF/MF range receivers that could have been 
used in such planes.  I've also seen such planes with a wind-driven 
generator attached to a wing strut to power the radio.

(The plane comes in for a landing, and that little propeller on the wing
strut is still spinning, and some onlooker asks, "What's that?" and is
told "That's the auxiliary engine.")

So I guess at training bases they might have made much use of the light 
gun control tower signals in lieu of radio.  I guess about all they had 
for radio prior to the SCR-274N was the SCR-183/283, which would have
been a pretty big radio for a training plane.

Believe the standard military airplane transmit frequency was 4495, and
as someone pointed out they received on the LF/MF range frequency or
separate transmitter and transmitted on HF.