[Milsurplus] Re: Russian "B-29"...

Thu May 6 03:08:47 EDT 2004

I own a US-9, which is the Russian copy of the BC-348. It's almost identical
to the original BC-348Q, with at least one improvement I can tell.
The US-9   primary fuse for the 28 V input power is on the front panel, next
to the dial light dimmer. It makes more sense not to have to take the radio
out of the case to change the fuse...  The dynamotor was replaced in the
60's with a drop-in upgrade to a solid-state inverter.

The differences between the BC-348 and the US-9 are that the knobs on the
US-9 are plastic and not aluminum casting, and one of the two headset jacks
is the standard European style banana jacks.
By the way I have a bunch of NOS Russian metal octal tubes for spares for my
Russian equipment (all equivalents of the US tubes), with 1972 manufacturing
dates!

I've been trying for a long time to find an R-807 (or RCB-70 according to
the older Soviet military nomenclature) - the Russian copy of the ART-13 but
so far no luck.

73, Meir WF2U
Gowensville, SC

 -----Original Message-----
From: 	[email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]]  On Behalf Of
[email protected]
Sent:	Wednesday, May 05, 2004 9:22 PM
To:	[email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]
Subject:	RE: [Milsurplus] Re: Russian "B-29"...

Years ago at the Foothill College flea market (California) there was for
sale a Russian "BC-348".Not an exact copy but very similar inside and out.If
I'd had the cash then I'd be able to tell you all about it now... :-(
 Jay

-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]]On Behalf Of Mike Morrow
Sent: Wednesday, May 05, 2004 5:49 PM
To: Kenneth G. Gordon; [email protected]
Subject: Re: [Milsurplus] Re: Russian "B-29"...

Ken wrote:

>The one they copied also had a large patch on one side, low down
>near the front on the left side which covered some battle damage.

There's been a considerable amount of debate over how many such reports are
mythological.  With three B-29s for the Soviet engineers to examine, it
would have been unlikely for battle-damage repairs on one aircraft to have
been incorporated as a design feature into the Soviet version (the Tu-4,
NATO-designated "Bull").

I wonder about how much of the B-29 avionics was duplicated.   The B-29
would certainly have had the AN/ARN-5/RC-103/RC-193 instrument landing
system, but did the Soviets have any corresponding ground equipment to make
it worth the effort to duplicate?  There was also a large amount of
electronic countermeasures equipment and bombardment and fire control
electronics which might have been worth duplicating.  I also wonder whether
they duplicated the AN/ARC-8 (ART-13, BC-348).  Some time ago I saw a photo
of the cockpit of a surviving Tu-4.  On the right side was a box that very
clearly was an almost exact duplicate of the C-87/ART-13 control box.  That
leads me to think that they likely copied closely the entire AN/ARC-8.  It
would seem that the B-29's AN/ARC-3 VHF sets would have been worth
duplicating.  Maybe there was a C-118/ARC-3 duplicate in the photo that
escaped my notice.  I'd sure like to get a chance to crawl around in that
Russian museum's Tu-4.  Too bad the USAF Museum at Dayton doesn't have some
of these in its collection.

73,
Mike / KK5F

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