Talk:Advanced Range Instrumentation Aircraft

I was an Air Force Instuctor assigned to an FTD (Field Training Detachement) at Patrick AFB, Fla. Our job was to teach the electronic instrumentation gear to the maintenance and operator crews. We were also on flight status for tne bird. They arrived in late summer of 1966 at Patrick. They replaced a fleet of C-130's that had been doing range duty.

My job was teaching the 8 foot parabolic antenna system mounted in the nose of the plane. It was a monopulse automatic tracking system. It operated in VHS and UHS bans.

Micro-chips were just starting to make an appearance and the circuit boards were still using a lot of  transistors.AND and OR gates were used extensively in the logic....fouf gates to a chip. The eight legged chips.

In those days we also taught a Hi-Value soldering course to teach Air Force techs how to solder these new chips...to get rid of the old soldering guns whose electromagnetic field from it's transformer could wipe out a chip.

I flew a number of down range missions in real time to support the program. We would usually head out to Australia from Patrick AFB, Fla to California (overnite), to Hawaii(overnite), Guam (ovenite) and then to Perth, Australia. Our route back was usually from the east side of Australia up to the Fiji isnlands (overnite), Hawaii(overnite) and from Hawaii to patrick AFB...non-stop.

I left the program in 1973 and heard that the birds were moved to Wright-Patterson. It was in the 1980's that I heard that one of them had gone down with a loss of all the crew PLUS their spouses. They had been having a Bring Your Spouse Flight. I heard a lot of stories about what might have happened but never got the exact final report

So far as I know the only problems with the planes were relatively minor, routine, easily overcome tnings. On one flight I made we lost the main hydraulic system. We had to let the wheels down manually. There was some reserve pressure but they weren't sure if it was enough to give us suffificent braking power. That model did NOT have reverse thrusters (A model). There was a net at the end of the runway for fighter planes and the tower asked us if we wanted it put up. The pilot said "don't bother....it will just be one more thing they will have to replace if we aren't able to stop.".....the worst part of not being able to stop is that the end of the runway ran right off onto the base golf course. There would have bee a lot of angry generals and Colonels if we had messed it up.

Good Luck prvailed and we had enough reserve pressure to get the plane stopped. (I say "we" as tho I did anything worth noting. I merely sat there and sweaetd it out.  The flight crew was the one who did all that needed to be done. Very professionaly and calmly.)

Wonder if anyone else is around from those days. 1966-1973.