you ever removed from a airplane?

What was the gear and which airplane, please?

Toss up between the AN/APS-82 radar antenna pedestal and the APS-82 radar transmitter in the E-1B Willy Fudd. Don't remember the exact weights, but some where around 300lbs. Maybe Fearless Fosdick can help me out on the weights.


Bob

Bob
I don't have the weights on the APS 82 components. I was in the Com/Nav shop.
I do remember that they were big and clumsy to work with.
FYI, I just met a guy that helped design the APS 82.
My heaviest black box was the ARC 38 HF.
It weighed about 60 lbs.
It was alot heavier than the ARC 27, ARC 52 or TACAN.
This was in the WF2/E1B Tracer "Willy Fudd'

About 120 lbs. It was about two feet wide, about three feet long, and about one foot thick.

It was electronics countermeasures (can't remember the designation right now) and it was
in A4D's or A4E's.

This was in 1965, off Viet Nam, and was a secret, emergency installation to combat the SAM missles that were shooting down our planes at that time. The gear was from the Korea, or WWII era, but it did work against the SAMS for a while. I assume they came up with something newer soon after this period. It was installed in the "hell hole" which, as former A4 people know was not a friendly place for electronics gear.

We had to figure out how to do swap outs on the flight deck, and hangar bay during flight ops, or at night, and, we did not have a lot of AT's in the shop during either 12 hour shift. What we came up with was for the riggers to make us kind of a knapsack, with two shoulder straps, and two straps from the outer side that came over your shoulder, and you held with a hand. To get to the shop, we had to go down three decks, and up one from the flight deck, and had to use the regular ladders, or on rare occasions, we could catch an elevator. (As some of you know, the elevator was a killer when it hit bottom and you had a heavy load!)

Luckilly, it was fairly reliable, and simple to operate (off, stby, on, and a pilot light). The pilots said that it did work against SAMs, and guns that were radar controlled.

One good thing was that they sent several of us to school on this at Cubi Point while the ship was on the line, so I got more time in Olongapo, and got to make one carrier landing in a COD.

Tink,

That was probably the AN/ALQ-100, later upgraded to the AN/ALQ-126.

Before anyone jumps on this, all this info is readily available on the internet.

Bob

AN/ALQ-100 was a heavy piece of gear. I remember the TRONs complaininig about them. If I remember right when they were in the Prowlers?

I think you are right on the designation. Thanks!

By the way while browsing around, I think I found the ultimate Military Twidget site. It lists all kinds of stuff.

http://www.designation-systems.net/usmilav/electronics.html

"Before anyone jumps on this, all this info is readily available on the internet."

Not only that, but the planes, the gear, and the guys, are looong since retired.

Commander,

I just looked at your profile, and you may be interested to know that the story above was while I was attached to VA-86 aboard the USS Independence, during a West Pac cruise from the east coast. It took about 30 days each way.

At that time, they carried around a stuffed snake (sidewinder) in a glass box, and kept it in the ready room. Did they still have that when you were in the squadron?

The ALQ-100 Deception Repeter was in our Phantoms also, both B and J models. Mounted just aft of the RIO canope on the B's and farther back toward the tail on the J's. If memory serves each half weighed about 115 pounds.Both halfs were mounted togeather at the shop and stayed togeather. I worked on these in AMD.

Shockey

This message has been edited. Last edited by: shockey,

Tink, The snake was gone when I got there. It must have been gone for some time because I never heard any stories about it.

Shockey, The A-4, F-4,and the A-7A/B had this gear high up on top of the aircraft. Made it a real bi*ch to get them in and out. When the A-7E came out, they moved it to the stbd avionics bay.

Fearless, Remember the ARC-38 well. Every now and then on a long cycle, we'd run the trailing wire out and try for a phone patch from the MED. On Det-18, we still had 2 A/C that had ARC-1s installed.

Fearless Fosdick, you mentioned the ARC-27s, ARC-52s and TACANS. When I was a very young non-petty officer I was sent to AIMD Production Control. Since we had our own repair facilities on base, I used to have to lug those from the Tweet shop, process the paper work and lug them back to the Tweet Shop for repair. Then when they were RFI, I'd pick them up for the supply driver to take to the warehouse. I had a small four wheeled cart that I pushed/pulled around carrying all those boxes. Glad I was 20 years old at the time!

That snake was looking pretty worn out the last time I saw it. I guess they sent it to the old snake home.

the biggest one for me that we use to call the pickle barrel or keg was the main housing for the radar for a C-130F. This was kept in the nose and weighed 81lbs. It was easy to remove and a butt to put back in beacause of the weight. This thing was so old it was filled with vacuume tubes and would literally get hot

VCP-63 had F8U-1Ps with the ASQ-17, BIG white washtub, behind the pilot. I think it was about 130 pounds. It had an 'ARC-27', IFF, Guard Radio, and PS.

We also had the SIF, TACAN, and the APN-22, and who's antenna was near the tail under the engine on a swing door. In two years I only replaced one of these. I was told to get over to the side when opening the door as it would be covered in hydralic fluid (it was).

The A3Ds had a hell hole, a big one that could hold a couple of guys. Had ARC-38 (HF), real ARC-27, APN-22, little ARC-? (guard radio), TACAN, APN-14 was in the cockpit cabin, and I am probably missing something. Also had the ammo boxes for the rear guns. I don't think our squadron had an FC types.

I remember after I got to NAS LeMoore in AIMD nearly all the ARC-27s in the ASQ-17s had been 'modified' so the transmitters had 'grounded grid amplifers' The could put out about 10 or so watts, while the standard amps where around 6 or 7 watts, if my memory is correct.

quote:

Originally posted by lcdrldo:

Fearless, Remember the ARC-38 well. Every now and then on a long cycle, we'd run the trailing wire out and try for a phone patch from the MED. On Det-18, we still had 2 A/C that had ARC-1s installed.

Bob
The 2 a/c you had with ARC 1's were probably 2 of our 1964 DET 65 birds. I worked on installing those crystal controlled wonders before we deployed aboard the BIG E in 1964.
We installed the ARC 1's on the deck just behind the stack with the 3 ARC 52's and the ARC 38.
Do you have the BUNOs of the planes you had on that Det? I can check my logbook and let you know if they were the ones I worked on in Det 65.
Yup! We had a couple of HAM's in the Det and we would phone patch also. One HAM pilot would regularly call his wife who was also a HAM.

Ah yes...the ASQ-17. The A4 had those also. It was located in the nose attached to the bulkhead that was the front of the cockpit. There was a square socket that you used a speed handle crank on, and gave it about 300 turns to crank up the nose. We almost NEVER took the whole unit off...it was too hard to get back on. We took the cover off, and changed sub-assemblies.

Here is a pic of us working on one. (Notice that we are using the proper safety workstand.)



An interesting feature of this device was that the ASQ-17 had an opening in the back that fitted into one in the bulkhead so that it was open to the cockpit. This provided pressurisation for the radio at high altitudes. Sometimes a pilot would dump cockpit pressure at altitude and smoke the radio. Another problem was that if the unit really burned up, it would fill the cockpit with smoke. Neither of these made the pilots happy.

While at Miramar, in the early 60's, I was over at the AIMD shop and they had a radar unit out of an F4.

I was suprised at how large it was.

The shop was on the second floor and had a overhead track, doors open to the crane that could pick the unit up and bring it into the shop on the overhead track.

They tech told me it cold pick up a bear can at over 100 miles!.

quote:

Originally posted by VCP63:

They tech told me it cold pick up a bear can at over 100 miles!.

VCP 63
That tech was pulling your leg.
I ran intercepts with F4s.
The F4's radar was better than the F8's but nowhere even close to half of 100 miles to pick up another aircraft.
Beer can?
Forget it at any range.

Rich, VA-147 Com/Nav/ECM "O" Level, 09-71 to 03-73
A-7E: AN/ALQ-100 receiver/transmitter. Swap out one or swap out 100, always a pain in the *ss!
Another pain was removing the armored panel to load or unload the panoramic gunsight camera. A zillion fasteners, mucho lbs., & very little time.
"Have Speedhandle, Will Struggle!"