[Milsurplus] Navigation System

[Mike Hanz]

Hi Mike!

Mike Morrow wrote:

>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.
>

It's one of those gray areas, that's for sure.  It all traces to the 
boundary conditions of the assessment.  Does one aircraft installation 
make the difference, or 12, or 1200?  All goes back to perspective.  If 
your definition includes the list above, then absolutely the ARN-6 is 
strictly post-war.  As President Clinton said, it all depends on your 
definition of "is".  :-)

Funny, I've never seen a USAAF or USAF ARN-6, so I was thinking it was 
more of a Navy set.  All three examples here have Navy contract 
numbers.  It's curious what impressions we get from our environment. <g>

>>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.
>

Dunno.  If it was being procured as a Navy system, I would have thought 
it would be in this NAVAER list, but no joy.  Just one more mystery of 
minutia to fascinate us, I guess....

73,
Mike