[Milsurplus] Seeking information

[WA5CAB at cs.com]

I'm afraid that I have to agree with Bill's assessment.  Like Bill, I 
occasionally buy large lots of manuals but don't ever recall getting anything that 
late in that area.  And I don't rate your chances with FOIA as good either.  
Unless you manage to generate national media attention, the bureaucrats at the 
AFB where the last copy of the manual got deposited will just run you around in 
circles until you finally give up.  

In a message dated 5/6/2004 11:58:00 PM Central Daylight Time, aw288@osfn.org 
writes: 
> >I'm a researcher working with several ex-USAF B-52 crewmembers to document
> >an event which occurred in North Dakota late 1968.  Part of the
> >circumstances of this event relate to the ASQ-38 bomb/nav system of the
> >B-52H, specifically the radar system (AN/APN-89A I think).
> >
> >I've tried through FOIA to the USAF and through retired Navigator's groups
> >etc. to locate information on this radar for our report without success.
> >Specs, manuals, drawings and photos of this equipment - any of these - or
> >even parts thereof - would be valuable.
> 
> I think you might have difficulty. Manuals for the 1950s era aircraft
> radars tend to be really difficult to find. It is not so much that the
> information was incredibly classified - it wasn't - it is just that nobody
> kept the books! The World War 2 era aircraft maintenance manuals are rare,
> certainly, but because of the aura of the war and the planes that used
> them, people saved some of the information. The same is not the case with
> the cold war era radars - nearly all of the collectors and historians of
> old radar sets cut off their interest strictly at 1945.
> 
> I do not know where you should start searching. You might track down some
> of the shops that would rebuild radars - they might have manuals kicking
> around.
> 

Robert Downs - Houston
<http://www.wa5cab.com> (Web Store)
<wa5cab@cs.com> (Primary email)
<wa5cab@houston.rr.com> (Backup email)


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