[NLRS] Slightly off topic, strange airplane

[Bruce Richardson]

Hi All:

While covet is too strong of a word, I sure would like an airplane like
what Jon described.  I wrote him privately that in all of my experience
I thought I "should" have seen something like that before, but I hadn't.
I agreed with his suspicion of cable or pipeline finder.  Sure, the
underlying airplane could have been a CASA product or even an old
C-123--but "I wonder what the purpose and use is of the airplane he
saw".

I used to do aeronautical mobile in the C-130. 17m and 52.525FM were my
favorite bands.  The C-130 went slowly enough and we had a crew of 4 on
the Flight Deck, so if I "played radio" for awhile at cruise, it was no
problem. Last Decemeber, I was on the DC-10 as a Flight engineer for one
month.  On one trip, I did some AeroMobile work between Hawaii and
Japan.  Got some ZL's and VK's and a boat load of JA's.  This past Feb,
I was flyiing from LAX to DTW and I looked up on the panel overhead and
noticed that it was one of the first planes modded for some (then)
approaching ETOPS flights from the west coast to Hawaii.  Things were
quiet at that moment so I tuned it up to 20m while I was over central
Illinois.  Who do I hear but N2BJ.  I gave him a quick call and said
hello.  Then it was time to start our descent for DTW and I had to stop
playing with it.

Sure VHF as AeroMobile is cool but it's a mixed bag.  2m is just too
packed.  If you go on a repeater output, all the repeaters keying up
coming back to you are a madhouse.  If you go on .52, it's still a
madhouse.  Locally here on .46, we've heard two AM's--one local and one
transcon.  (The C-130 radio would not tune to 146.46 resolution.)  That
was a smart decisison on his part to get off of .52.  On the C-130, we
had one radio that went to 52.525FM easily and that was the easiest to
use--although I've never done 6m FM here at home.  My 6m world centers
around 50.125.

I joked with Jon that the airplane REALLY wanted to participate in the
160m contest (ending in an hour) this weekend.

Bruce Richardson - W9FZ

I don't know what apathy is and I really don't care


> -----Original Message-----
> From: John (JK) Kalenowsky, K9JK [mailto:hamk9jk at ameritech.net]
> Sent: Sunday, December 05, 2004 7:50 AM
> To: nlrs at mailman.qth.net
> Subject: Re: [NLRS] Slightly off topic, strange airplane
>
>
> Let's see...who among the NLRS is a pilot and multi-engine rated?
>
> Maybe Jon saw the latest incantation of a Dubya Nine Frank
> Zappa Rover
> vehicle??? ;-)
>
> 73, JK
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Donn Baker" <wa2voi at mail.mninter.net>
> To: <W0ZQ at aol.com>; <nlrs at mailman.qth.net>
> Sent: Saturday, December 04, 2004 16:11
> Subject: Re: [NLRS] Slightly off topic, strange airplane
>
>
> Jon,
> You REALLY need to lay off the "Christmas Cheer !"  At least until the
> sun's over the yard-arm.
>
> 73 Donn
> WA2VOI/0
>
>
> At 11:42 04-12-04 EST, W0ZQ at aol.com wrote:
> >When I went outside today to get my mail, I saw a strange
> airplane that
> >perhaps someone out there in NLRS can explain to me
> >
> >The plane was a two engine (prop) of fair size, say about
> 1/2 the size  of
> >a
> >C130.   It did not appear to be military.   It was  flying
> west to east at
> say
> >2,000' or so, somewhat low.     What caught my attention was
> the large
> >horizontal loop "antenna" (I'm assuming  its an antenna).
> There was a
> strut out
> >the back of the tail and a  second strut out the front of
> the nose and a
> cable
> >(wire?) strung all the way  around outside of the plane;
> from the tip of
> >the
> >nose strut to the tip of the  left wing, to the tip of the
> tail strut, to
> the
> >tip of the right wing, back to  the tip of the nose strut.
> It looked like
> >someone had taken a pencil  and drawn a box all around the
> very outside of
> the
> >airplane.    A  flying horizontal loop.    Like I said, it
> look strange
> and I've
> >never seen anything like it before.
> >
> >My guess is its some kind of downward looking magnetic
> detection  device
> >...
> >perhaps for pipelines or ???.    Like I said, I don't  think it was
> >military.
> >
> >Of course my thoughts were about how it would load on say,
> 6m, or perhaps
> >160m.
> >
> >73, Jon
> >W0ZQ
>
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