[Milsurplus] ARC/GRC(27)

[Jim Haynes]

On Sat, 6 Mar 2010, WA5CAB at cs.com wrote:

> I am curious, though, as to why they would have used the ARC-27 instead of
> the unpressurized AN/ARC-55, which I presume would have been lighter,
> cheaper, and had ventilation.

I'm curious why they used the ARC-27 in place of the GRC-27 - but maybe 
the answer is that they had run out of GRC-27s and had tons of ARC-27s
left over from refitting the airplane fleet with later model radios.

Mention has been made of poor reliability of the ARC-27s compared with
the ARC-3s, yet Collins was pretty proud of the ARC-27.  So perhaps
the ARC-27 was better that previous equipment when used in airplane
service, but no in ground service.