Unconventional uses for avionics

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.

..

"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.

Don't know how "unusual" this is, but during an emergency under a
very low ceiling with a fast moving front approaching I've used my
handheld GPS (w/moving map) for NOE navigation which possibly
saved my life.

"George R. Gonzalez" wrote in message news:jIgeb.639605$Ho3.131537@sccrnsc03...
What's some of the unusual uses for avionics you've heard of?
Hoho:
1) On long XCs in the T33 tuning to the 'bottom' on the VOR would
yield a commercial FM radio station and music, etc. (ISTR that was
108.3mhz)
2) The F102A's upper electronics bay would hold two adults with the
bay door shut so the space was utilized a lot on flights from Canada
to the US for other (ahem) freight - like eight cases . . . I
understand the same opportunity existed in the F89 series, accessed
from a panel above and between the engine exhausts, although this,
strictly speaking, wasn't an electronics bay.
WaltBJ

Not electronics, but chaff tanks on EB-57s had been known to carry
smoked hams, shrimp, and beer.

Buzzer wrote:

Not electronics, but chaff tanks on EB-57s had been known to carry
smoked hams, shrimp, and beer.

Engine sling compartments on Lancasters, wheel well fairings on
P2V-7's and the Hydraulics bay between the bomb bay's on the
Argus were all the sweet spots for transporting 'goods' when
homeward bound from jaunts to Bermuda, Lajes and other ASW
haunts.

(memories of CC for a buck a fourty...Bacardi's two bucks a
fourty or Cockspur Rum for SEVENTY CENTS!!
--

-Gord.

Don't know how "unusual" it is, but when ADF's were common, they were
used to point out lightning, long before there was a "Strikefinder",
which I've heard was developed from a cheap ADF.

"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

I saw a guy crack some walnuts with a processor from an ALR-46 RWR once
(a hundred thousand bucks worth of electronics). The funny part was
that it was a repair action (the cards inside got loose, and the common
way to reseat them was to undo some lock screws and whack the thing on a
solid surface from a couple of inches up).

--
cirby at cfl.rr.com

Remember: Objects in rearview mirror may be hallucinations.
Slam on brakes accordingly.

On 30 Sep 2003 20:41:42 -0700, (WaltBJ) wrote:

"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

We didn't see that on our T-33s at Tyndall. I guess too much local
flying time for the interceptor training.

Did you fly with the ALQ-72 and have to keep the speed above 250kts or
the fuses would blow on the pod? With the amount of fuses we went
through at Tyndall keeping a T-33 above 250 seemed to be a problem..

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.

.