[Milsurplus] last Flight , Part two

[Todd, KA1KAQ]

On Apr 4, 2005 3:22 PM, Ray Fantini <RAFANTINI at salisbury.edu> wrote:
> The statement about the  radio and other parts have several sources, not
> the least of them the museum at Wright pat, think I read about it being
> a ARC-1 from something back in the seventies in "Flying" or Air
> Classics" but that was a long time ago. Adamantly it would go agents
> everything to think of equipment going from a derelict aircraft into a
> flying one, no tags and the like but the story persist. Just hope no one
> used the SCR-269 ADF!

>From memory, the story went along the lines that the morgue team sent
there to recover remains (missed twice by the military and found twice
by the oil co. team) had a radio failure and someone noted that the
B-24 gear was all still in great shape (I recall reading that the .50
cals fired when tested), so they did a swap. The radio (likely the
BC-348 as Mike said) came to life and worked fine. I also recall
something about one the oil company helicopters having a crap out of a
piece of gear, likely command set-sized stuff. Same result. Maybe
different versions of the same story, maybe one tried it because they
heard the other had success. The military did fly large transports to
the area with the morgue teams and equipment. The oil company was
there, doing exploration.

It would make perfect sense that the gear would be preserved quite
well in that climate. Remember that from the air they were able to see
tracks from WWII vehicles, likely Italian from what I remember. Since
much of this type of equipment was still in use both in civilian as
well as military aircraft of less importance like transports, it's
quite possible that a swap or swaps were made. Not a lot different
than pulling a tube from a NOS piece of surplus gear to use in
another, in principal.

There was also a show on the History Channel about this event, which
also made reference to the radio incident. FWIW

~ Todd/'Boomer'  KA1KAQ