[Milsurplus] Re: Aerospace hardware

[BOEING377 at aol.com]

I worked in the sat business for 6 years and used to see occasional space stuff at the TRW ham swap in the Los Angeles area. It was often identifiable by an abundance of gold plating. Unlikely that it ever flew (although the Shuttle was used to bring down some comm sats whose apogee kick motors failed (didnt get kicked into geosynch orbit), so its not impossible that flown sat hardware would be available). Once saw an INS system that didnt look like any acft ones I knew of. ICBM?  Sold for $160 to the guy aheads of me. Who knows what it came from but it was a beautiful thing to behold. I did see REAL (not dummy) Sidewinder IR seeker heads there on one occasion. I knew what they looked like cause my employer made them. Back then (1980s) we werent thinking in 9-11 mode. The good old days.