[Milsurplus] Radio-less trainers

[Mike]

Cletus W Whitaker wrote:

> What was the single-engine recip trainer that came between the
> T-6 and the T-38? Was it a T-28?  Whatever, the one I sat in sometimes
> at Dover in 1959 had a little VHF radio by the pilot's left knee.  The
> radio was in two square boxes; a four-channel xtal controlled 
> transmitter, and a tunable receiver.

The radio equipment was most likely A.R.C. commercial type-12 VHF AM
sets or the military equivalent.  If so, there would have been an
R-508/ARC VHF receiver, which is the same general size and shape as an
AN/ARC-5 HF receiver.  The transmitter (T-363/ARC, typically) would have
been square with four channels, powered by the receiver dynamotor
(DY-86/ARN-30) which was a heavier duty (85 mA vs 65 mA) version of the
old command set receiver dynamotor (DY-2A/ARR-2).  

There was also a UHF version (AN/ARC-60) of similar components, though
that would have required a CV-431/AR UHF receiver-converter/transmitter
(eight-channel crytal-controlled transmit, receive frequency tunable
through the R-508/ARC VHF receiver into which the CV-431/AR fed).  The
R-508 and the CV-431 were physically the same size.

The USN used Beech T-34 aircraft (single engine, recip).  It was much
smaller than the T-28.  The ones that I flew in back in 1972 at Corpus
Christi NAS had A.R.C.-made AN/ARC-60 UHF gear.

Mike / KK5F