Question for warbird experts!

S

Sascha66

Charter Member 2015
Hi all,

I' ve been chewing on a question for some time and thought I'd pose it to the concentrated warbird expertise on this forum:

What type of radio equipment and antenna did the P-51 series have?

I have seen a number of photographs showing early models having both a wire running from the tail to the cockpit and a fixed antenna just aft of the cockpit. From screenshots I believe that the Warbirdsim model has this down pat. This seem to be separate antenna (for different frequencies?), a rig similar to the early BF109.

The wire rig sems to have been phased out by the C model as far as I can tell.

However, the popular shockwave P-51D (with bubble canopy) model (or now A2A) seems to have it again, plus a fixed antenna! But I could not find a photograph showing a P-51D with this setup. On the two occasions I was lucky enough to see a real P-51D at the ILA airshow I remeber it having a fixed antenna. The freeware P-51D by W. Carter which I fly regularly does not have the wire.

Can any of you guys more in the know about Warbirds and radio clear this up or point me to a good site for the Mustang?

Thank you and regards,
Sascha
 
don't know about warbirds per se, but I do know a bit about aeroplanes

AFAIK a Bendix SRC522 was one of the radios,and an APS-13 tail warning radar was also fitted to later models.

As regards wire antenna's, these are mostly used for HF (not VHF), even today on some a/c, while the blade (stem)
type is the VHF, this is because of the relationship between frequency and wavelength, the lower the frequency,the longer the wavelength,and therefore the longer the antenna needed to transmit it

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_frequencies

however it is also possible to use the vertical fin as an HF emitter,it being a large metal object,the HF tuning couplers which effectively tune the antenna for a set frequency are conected directly to the structure (F4 Phantom used this method) so I'm guessing thats' what was done when the wire disappeared,it simply went inside the fin

To bore you a bit about signal propagation the problem arises that VHF is a line-of-sight signal, once
large mountains or the curvature of the earth come into play then its' best to use HF which is a 'skywave' and is bounced off the ionosphere


more advanced reading here -----> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_propagation

and finally, do not take what you see on a Warbird today as representative of what it once had back then, radio installations (and owners choice) vary a lot, as no doubt Martin (T6Flyer) would also tell you.

hope this helps

ttfn

Pete
 
As Motormouse said, it depended on the radio and navagation equipment fitted to that particular aircraft. Mustangs could have antenna wires, no wires or Blade antennas. Many mustangs in the pacific also had DF Loop antennas fitted.
 
Sascha66 said:
Hi all,

I' ve been chewing on a question for some time and thought I'd pose it to the concentrated warbird expertise on this forum:

What type of radio equipment and antenna did the P-51 series have?

I have seen a number of photographs showing early models having both a wire running from the tail to the cockpit and a fixed antenna just aft of the cockpit. From screenshots I believe that the Warbirdsim model has this down pat. This seem to be separate antenna (for different frequencies?), a rig similar to the early BF109.

The wire rig sems to have been phased out by the C model as far as I can tell.

However, the popular shockwave P-51D (with bubble canopy) model (or now A2A) seems to have it again, plus a fixed antenna! But I could not find a photograph showing a P-51D with this setup. On the two occasions I was lucky enough to see a real P-51D at the ILA airshow I remeber it having a fixed antenna. The freeware P-51D by W. Carter which I fly regularly does not have the wire.

Can any of you guys more in the know about Warbirds and radio clear this up or point me to a good site for the Mustang?

Thank you and regards,
Sascha
Click to expand...

The vertical mast just behind the cockpit is a VHF antenna. The long wire was a Detrola receiver antenna. These two antenna were present on wartime P51's as they left the factory. Since the Detrola was a LF receiver ONLY, and its main value was reception of weather from ranges in the states, most Detrolas were taken out of the Mustangs when they reached their combat areas and seeing a Mustang with a Detrola wire antenna installed is quite rare and indicates the airplane is being used in the United States.
Many Mustangs in civilian use today have had the heavy VHF radios replaced with modern avionics; King, Bendix, Narco, and Collins radios are quite common and the antennas are much more modern.

Dudley Henriques
 
The basic radio was a pair of SCR 522 with a linear amplifier. They were used by both the Army Air Force and The U.S.Navy.
They were a very tough radio and used a pair of metalized 6L6s in push-pull putting out 24 watts. The linear amp would put it up to 40 watts at the antenna.
They became a Ham Radio favorite after the war. I know of one ham that got a full kilowatt out of it for about five minutes. He used water cooling on the output tubes. Reminds me of todays CPUs.
 
dhenriques said:
The vertical mast just behind the cockpit is a VHF antenna. The long wire was a Detrola receiver antenna........ Since the Detrola was a LF receiver ONLY

Dudley Henriques
Click to expand...

Thanks Dudley, like I said, I was guessing

Many Mustangs in civilian use today ......... King, Bendix, Narco, and Collins radios are quite common and the antennas are much more modern.
Click to expand...

along with dme,gps and ils too



ttfn

Pete
 
Of some possible interest, the recently restored P-51D Mustang finished as "Happy Jack's Go Buggy" (considered one of the two most accurately restored Mustangs), has the wire antenna removed, as the Mustangs within the original squadron removed theirs. I found while researching the P-51B/C models, viewing tons of in-service photos, the wire was typically always in place, except for a few rare occurrences, however viewing in-service photos of D models, it seems the other way around. Of course with the installation of the Malcolm hood on the P-51B and C airframes, they did away with the wire antenna completely, while also removing the stock VHF antenna and replacing it with a whip-style antenna.

To toss even more information into the mix, P-51D Mustangs operating from Iwo Jima in 1945 sported two side-by-side AN/ARA-8 VHF antennas on the top of the fuselage, where the single SCR-522 VHF antenna once stood, as well as a AN/ARC-3 antenna under the nose. There was no use of any wire antenna, though they sported the APS-13 Tail Warning Radar antenna on the vertical fin as well, which was a common feature of later P-51D's and modified P-51B/C's late in the war, both in Europe and the Pacific. Jim Beasley's P-51K is currently being restored in the configuration of an Iwo-based Mustang, complete with the antenna modifications/additions.

A few of the more recent Mustang restorations actually sport replica SCR-522 radio boxes, that are used to store either modern avionics or used as a storage bin for long flights. Some others, and some the same, hide the modern radio equipment inside original map/document cases within the cockpit - once closed, the cockpit looks completely stock.
 
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