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TALAR


tinyclark
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How many of you guys remember using TALAR? I remember seeing it installed, and wonder if it actually worked.

I was a Yokota from 1975 until 1980 and we installed it on some of our birds that didn't have it. We had to pull a test on it every so often and I replaced a few receivers but never had the opportunity to see it used in flight.

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TALAR was a quick setup ground system that basically performed the ILS/Glideslope functions. Was developed to be set up quickly at a remote site without any aids. It was on all the 62-63 models we had at Yokota and I thought it was installed AF wide on all C-130's. Evidently the system is no longer in use, but I retrained out of Maintenance in 1984 so I have been away from them a long time.

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If I remember right and its been many moons ago. The system worked ok if it was set up properly by the CCT, but it wasn't trusted by alot of pilots. We had it on E models at Dyess and Yokota both, only place I remember using it was at K 10 in Korea and at Pope during an ORI.

Mike

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TALAR (Tactical Air Landing Approach Radar) was tested in the late 1960's by the 4419 Test Squadron at Pope. It was installed for the test into C-7, C-123, and the C-130E belonging to the Test Sqd. It worked great during the tests giving the crews an ILS anywhere in the world with very little set up time. The ground transmitter was the size of a large suitcase mounted on a tripod.

The AF had a lot of money at the time and procurred a bunch of airplane sets before the testing was complete. As I said, the ILS signal produced was very usable in all weather.

The problems: It was difficult for the CCT to get the transmitter exactly on the runway heading as only 1 degree made a big difference and all they had was eyeball and hand held compasses.

The aircrews during the test found it very hard to find the course. On a normal ILS, the crew uses an outer marker (used to be NDB) or radar vectors from a radar site. (approach control). The TALAR was designed to be used in remote areas where no radar was available. The signal had to be found somewhere around 10 miles on final for normal use and all the C-130 had for navigation was doppler that wasn't that accurate.

The final test report stated the system was excellent once the airplane was on course, but its use was questionable due the difficulty in finding the final approach course. By that time many airplanes had been modified, but the transmitter buy was stopped. It was used a few limited times by C-130's with advanced navigational capabilities on special missions.

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USMC called it ARA-63, MLS (Microwave Landing System) same basic idea; remote use, ground set that provided a usable ILS/Glideslope approach. Worked good but used very little. Stopped fixing them after a while. The Ant. was mounted just below the center windscreen. Had to replace lots of them for holes then just plated over.

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I remember it as a pilots' flying continuation training requirement before about 1981. We did them at 17 TAS and not at 21 TAS, so somewhere in there "they" must have decided too tough to maintain or not cost-effective or sumthin'.

As has been said, seemed to work OK, as I recall. Like mentioned above, you had to get to the "gate" by some other means...ARA, GCA, ASR, doppler computer, NDB, TACAN, VOR/DME, cross two VOR radials, etc. Don't recall if an identifier code was transmitted. Probably still be a cheap, effective way to get there if your INS dies. LF/MF or UHF beacon/transmitter, ADF, TALAR, good field elevation and good altimeter setting and you wouldn't even need a navigator...you be the navigator

My $0.02

Edited by Fred
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Actually if I remembers rights, the MLS was set up to be used by civilian aircraft and airports as well for a landing system but was bumped before it got into use by GPS. And of course the AF dumped a buttload of money into the system and modded a lot of airplanes and it never got used.

There were only a couple of fields that were set up for MLS approaches so it was rare to be qualified to use it, on a plane that had it active when you went into a field that had MLS set up. From what I heard it was a great system and worked really well.

Dan

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