Greasy Rider wrote in
:

On Wed, 12 Jan 2005 01:34:34 GMT, Dave in San diego
postulated :

You had to go and do it - bring up old painful memories. The ARC-27
was my second least favorite piece of tron gear to replace. The ARN-21
TACAN ranked first, primarily because of its generally more difficult
location in the a/c. Can you believe they still had those boat anchors
around into the 80s?

I worked on FJ-3M, F9F, F11F, AD-6, and A4D.
The A4D was the worst for me with that damned "biscuit" which housed
it all. The ARC-27 was my bread and butter gear. Easy to diagnose
problems. Using the bicycle pump always attracted the attention of the
other shops. The only gear I never really understood was the APX-6
transponder. I always kept a wary eye on that live round .45 shell
aimed at the Top Secret cavitron.

Oh, the APX-6 was actually one of the easiest pieces I got to work with.
I saw it in "A" School, and briefly in the fleet before they transitioned
to the APX-72. The 72 was another item requiring the bicycle pump.

Speaking of that, when I was in Brunswick, we were having problems with
the 27s in some visiting EA-3s. Would work OK on the ground, and on
climb-out but would fail at altitude. When we went to AIMD and asked what
pressure they were pumped up to, the techs replied, "We never pump them
up, Stoofs don't go that high." Needless to say, after the **** flowed
downhill, ALL gear requiring pressurization was properly serviced from
then on.

Dave in San Diego