[Milsurplus] Navigation System

[Mike Morrow]

Mike wrote:

>Well, I was somewhat less certain about that when I read the 
>observation.  In the process of moving, I unearthed CO-NAVAER 08-5Q-227 
>(Nomenclature List for Bureau of Aeronautics Aircraft Electronic 
>Equipment - Confidential) dated 1 April 1945, and the ARN-6 is listed 
>there plane (heh) as day.  Equipment that hasn't been released for 
>deployment yet has "In development" next to the entry, but no such 
>remark accompanies this entry, which simply sez, "AN/ARN-6( ).   
>Airborne MF Automatic Radio Compass...

Hi Mike,

I guess I'd tend to put the AN/ARN-6 in the same category as the AN/ARC-2, the AN/ARR-15, the AN/GRC-9, etc. and maybe even stuff like the AN/ARC-1 and AN/APX-6.   I know there's documentation and sometimes contract numbers indicating that such items were late WWII, but I just don't have a lot of confidence that any *actually* were out of the box in use when the war ended.  The AN/ARN-7, OTOH, is very comfortably documented in actual use before war's end.  I think of the AN/ARN-6, like all good ADFs of the era, as having been a USAAF development.

>No indication of ARN-9 to 11, but that's typical for the 
>Navy pubs...if it's a Signal Corps-instigated acquisition, they ain't 
>interested in them.  :-)

I'm thinking, but have no proof, that the AN/ARN-9 may have been the last version of the USN's short-lived "Air-Track" ILS.  I need to find a manual for it somewhere, but several years of searching for AN/ARN-9 info has produced only one picture of the ID-24/ARN-9 cross-needle pointer.  I'd like to find out more about the ZAX too.

73,
Mike / KK5F