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Vacuum tubes


Robert Podboy
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I can remember the APN 59 Radar System (I think the photo is theRT 289) , the ARN 6 ADF System , the VOR system , and the APN 70 LORAN System off the top of my head.  Can’t recall if the ARN 21 Tacan System was tube based.  I believe most of the Autopilot , Doppler , and Radio Systems were tube based until they were upgraded to solid state or digital components 

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We had at one time 10 "E" models starting with serial # 637776, we also had 2 -"E" 621809 I think was 1 of them anyway The E-4 Autopilot Amplifier was tubed and on long flights the crew would have to shut down the A/P because of tubes overheating and the axis's would spike, rolls, porpusing, etc etc. In 1991 after returning from desert mod teams came in and Satcom and GPS, along with NEW Autopilot which was all digital was installed in our Heres. We were lucky because back in the 80s all our Hercs had the wings and wing boxes replaced which extended their life. In 2005 Pope, Little Rock, and Dyess came up and took them all away as a result of the wing box inspection at these bases where non repairable cracks were found.  CRS runs thru my brain at times . The inspection came about after the C-130A belonging to Coulson fighting fires in California crashed killing all 3 on board as the wings folded back after the aircraft pulled up after dispening its retardant.

 

 

 

 

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  • 1 month later...

Anderson pretty much covered everything. Therer are still ARN6 ADF systems on some H models as far as I know, but I've been retired for 10 years.

I probably repaired close to a thousand RT-289s in my career. Early on after training on them, I started replacing the TR and ATR tubes on every one, as well as the PFN if it looked the slightest bit swelled. Our MTBF went up quite a bit.

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