[Milsurplus] PBY radios

[Mike Hanz]

Mike Morrow wrote:

>I have difficulty believing there were any instances of the USN having
>a program of installing a BC-348 with an ATC.  
>

Not so sure - the BC-348 is listed in the "Nomenclature List for Bureau 
of Aeronautics Aircraft Electronic Equipment" dated 1 April 1945 (as is 
the ARR-15 and ARC-25.  Sets in development are marked as such, but the 
ARR-15 and ARC-25 entries are worded like normal production equipment 
entries.)

>The C-131/AR modified R-26 and
>R-27 units were experimental kludges.  
>

We're on firmer ground from a research standpoint there - the "Airborne 
Radio Maintenance Notes" article I posted at 
http://aafradio.org/docs/C-131.html on the C-131/AR, dated November 
1945, states that "...the Yardney Spot Tuner has made its appearance via 
production TBM, TBY, and SB2C planes commencing with No. 5403 for TBMs, 
No. 175 for TBY's, and No. 4136 for SB2Cs."  Note that it doesn't say 
"*will* make its appearance", but puts it in the past tense.  For those 
so inclined, somewhere around the internet are production dates 
associated with airframe serial numbers, but I don't have the time at 
the moment to search for it.

It goes on to say that "This installation [referring to the twin 
receiver configuration (R-26 and R-27) - the original configuration 
being a single receiver for the first six months of installation 
activity] will replace the ARB in production aircraft."  That's quite a 
vote of confidence for the performance of the little command receiver!  
With the shift to to the ARR-15, it's likely that the C-131/AR 
installations ended with the two place aircraft, but it's fairly clear 
that the Navy considered them more than experimental at the time.  The 
Navy used the same A/N nomenclature for experimental sets (X*-1, 2, 3 
etc. where * was a letter representing the development organization 
code), but I have never seen, for example, a C-131/AR (XA-1) in the 
numerous examples I've laid eyes on over the years.  The later sets even 
replaced the normal R-26 and R-27 nomenclature plates on the receivers 
with R-26M and R-27M labels on the receiver cover, so someone was 
serious about productizing these sets despite their dim prospects for 
the future.

73,
Mike