Unconventional uses for avionics

"WaltBJ" wrote in message
om...
"Gord Beaman" ) wrote in message
. ..
Buzzer wrote:

Not electronics, but chaff tanks on EB-57s had been known to carry
smoked hams, shrimp, and beer.
SNIP:
Chaff tanks! 2 ALE-2s on a T33, call ahead, the dealer would be there
at BaseOps at Dow AFB with 300 lobsters - 150 per tank, seaweed and
ice and two quick ops-stop hops back to Homestead FL! Quite a sight to
see the bugs crawing about the 319th FIS ramp before the feast.
Walt BJ

Dave MacAllister, the CO of the old 142nd FS, Delaware ANG, was from a well
known family on the main Line in Phila that made the best Snapper Soup in
the entire United States. Dave used to fill the gun bays of his F86A and
later his H with Snapper Soup and fly the stuff all over the country to give
to people.
I as well used the gun bays on my P51D to transport at least one clean suit
for those awful rubber chicken dinners that the local Chamber of Commerce
used to "require" I attend at every air show I ever flew!!! :-))
Dudley Henriques
International Fighter Pilots Fellowship
Commercial Pilot/CFI Retired
For personal e-mail, use
dhenriquesATzarthlinkDOTnzt
(replacezwithe)

It wasn't really avionics, but in the bad old days when lots of us
smoked (and could, in the A-1), a pilot who forgot his lighter could
light up by using the light bulb in the gun sight (unscrew the fitting,
turn the sight on, hold against cigarette).

Jim Thomas

George R. Gonzalez wrote:
What's some of the unusual uses for avionics you've heard of?


I'll start off with a few:

Some airrline pilots turn on the weather radar during takeoff, their
superstition
is that it scares away birds.

During WWII, there was just enough space between some tubes in one radio set
to
hide a thin flask of hooch. A later model of the same radio was much
disliked,
as the design was perhaps changed intentionally to eliminate this
cubby-hole.

.

Jim Thomas wrote:

It wasn't really avionics, but in the bad old days when lots of us
smoked (and could, in the A-1), a pilot who forgot his lighter could
light up by using the light bulb in the gun sight (unscrew the fitting,
turn the sight on, hold against cigarette).

Very cool.

I remember being called out to the flight line many a time to open the
forward ALQ-126 compartment on A-6's to stow some "crew gear" -
especially when getting ready to return from a deployment at Rosie Road's.

When COORS was only available West of the Rockies - student pilots @
Whiting Field would bring back cases while on cross country flights.

I once heard a story of a B-47 crew that had to jettison a Jaguar over the
North Atlantic due to aircraft problems while returning from the UK. I also
heard a story about a B-36 that dropped a power cart (over Tulsa?) while
practicing bomb runs while on the way to the range.

"Adam Fathauer" wrote in message
.com...
I remember being called out to the flight line many a time to open the
forward ALQ-126 compartment on A-6's to stow some "crew gear" -
especially when getting ready to return from a deployment at Rosie Road's.

"George R. Gonzalez" wrote in message news:jIgeb.639605$Ho3.131537@sccrnsc03...

During WWII, there was just enough space between some tubes in one radio set
to
hide a thin flask of hooch. A later model of the same radio was much
disliked,
as the design was perhaps changed intentionally to eliminate this
cubby-hole.

I can believe that some sets could be used for hooch warmers (BC-375,
the big transmitter found in almost all WW2 bombers), but the front
panel never changed, even to the last 1945 production run. Every other
set that had a hatch of some sort wasn't big enough to hold hooch.

Still, pretty neat. Do you have any other details?

--
William Donzelli