Humorous Naval Air Flight Experiences

Repaired many an ARC-27 @ Whiting Field in the '70s.
Tough radio.
Jim

Good ole' ARC-27 you could always tell where in the shop the ARC-27
bench was or had been. From all of the holes in the ceiling where the
scribe ended up after forgetting to unkey the transmitter while tuning
the final PA stages capacitor plates. B+ of 1500 volts'll do that to ya.

Greasy Rider wrote:
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.

YUP! Had that happen many times. every once in a while - one of them would
loosen fall onto the bench.

ARC-1 in rear of AF.

"Dave in San diego" wrote in message
. ..
Greasy Rider wrote in
:

On Tue, 11 Jan 2005 12:44:36 -0800, "W. D. Allen Sr."
postulated :
For what it's worth...

(snipped)

It was a dark and stormy night aboard the Intrepid in the fall of
1957. A twenty year old Aviation Electronics Tech (AT3) was tasked
with replacing the UHF radio (ARC-27) in FJ-3M number 204 tied down on
the flight deck.

[remainder redacted]

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?

Dave in San Diego
O-level Tweet ('70 - '75)

"Dave in San diego" wrote in message
. ..
Greasy Rider wrote in
:

On Tue, 11 Jan 2005 12:44:36 -0800, "W. D. Allen Sr."
postulated :
For what it's worth...

(snipped)

It was a dark and stormy night aboard the Intrepid in the fall of
1957. A twenty year old Aviation Electronics Tech (AT3) was tasked
with replacing the UHF radio (ARC-27) in FJ-3M number 204 tied down on
the flight deck.

[remainder redacted]

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?

We had the landbased companion the GRC-27 which was the size of a
refrigerator in 1979. Lots of tiny gears to get in sync and loads of fun
bending silver tabs (which acted as capacitors) to tune it. You'd get every
thing right at 375MHZ and then find everything off at 250MHZ. Since it was
being junked they finally decided to let the E-4s and above work on it and
only if it was actually broke.

It did provide one of my more funnier movements in the Air Force. Our NCOIC
who was as well the custodian of all the squadrons radio equipment was a
stickler for every tiny screw being with his equipment and 8 of the cover
screws were missing from a GRC-27. For some reason supply couldn't find a
good part number and eventually our chief of maintenance , a very foxy
female 1st LT, called and I was the lucky guy who answered the phones when
she asked me about the the screws. The team leader for that equipment was
in the office and I put my hand on the mouthpiece aid "Hey Lt Blank is on
the phone and wants to know about 8 screws for a GRC-27? His reply? "hell I
don't need 8 screws from a GRC-27, I'll screw her for free." Which promptly
put the whole shop into uncontrollable laughter including (although not
known at the time) her future E-4 husband. Got to give her credit, she was
a pretty good sport about it when she finally found out what had happenned.


Dave in San Diego
O-level Tweet ('70 - '75)

was held by Tzus (sp?) fasteners at the rear

Its Dzus, at least thats the way it was spelled on the last blueprint I saw.

On Wed, 12 Jan 2005 13:02:34 -0700, "Leadfoot"
postulated :

was held by Tzus (sp?) fasteners at the rear

Its Dzus, at least thats the way it was spelled on the last blueprint I saw.

After I sent the message I suddenly remembered . Been way too long.
Thanks.

"Leadfoot" wrote:


was held by Tzus (sp?) fasteners at the rear

Its Dzus, at least thats the way it was spelled on the last blueprint I saw.

Yes, Dzus is correct...god knows I turned a lot of them on
Lancaster engine cowlings 'lo these many long years ago'...
(you don't pronounce the "D")
--

-Gord.
(use gordon in email)

Gord Beaman wrote:

"Leadfoot" wrote:

was held by Tzus (sp?) fasteners at the rear

Its Dzus, at least thats the way it was spelled on the last blueprint I saw.

Yes, Dzus is correct...god knows I turned a lot of them on
Lancaster engine cowlings 'lo these many long years ago'...
(you don't pronounce the "D")

Thanks, Gord, for the pronunciation note. Fortunately, I was
able to spend ~18 years in USMC aviation [and twenty-mumble years
since] without once having to actually /say/ that word. *Typed*
it a lot, but never, once, had to say it.

[Never heard it pronounced, either. Dunno if it was Marine
aviation wide, but everyone on our flight line always just said
something like "undo the frammis panel fasteners, take it off,
and then remove that gubeck Top Rock told us to replace".]
--
OJ III
[Email to Yahoo address may be burned before reading.
Lower and crunch the sig and you'll net me at comcast.]

Ogden Johnson III wrote:

Gord Beaman wrote:

"Leadfoot" wrote:

was held by Tzus (sp?) fasteners at the rear

Its Dzus, at least thats the way it was spelled on the last blueprint I saw.

Yes, Dzus is correct...god knows I turned a lot of them on
Lancaster engine cowlings 'lo these many long years ago'...
(you don't pronounce the "D")

Thanks, Gord, for the pronunciation note. Fortunately, I was
able to spend ~18 years in USMC aviation [and twenty-mumble years
since] without once having to actually /say/ that word. *Typed*
it a lot, but never, once, had to say it.

[Never heard it pronounced, either. Dunno if it was Marine
aviation wide, but everyone on our flight line always just said
something like "undo the frammis panel fasteners, take it off,
and then remove that gubeck Top Rock told us to replace".]

Yes...it's pronounced like the God 'Zeus' (or like I imagine it's
spelled anyway...)
--

-Gord.
(use gordon in email)