Drawings and prints

My '50 Cruisemaster (tenth one built) has a pretty standard looking V-shaped bare wire VOR antenna buried in one wing, and a low freqency antenna buried in the other. It has been a while since I looked at it, but I recall that the low frequency antenna consists of 3 or four square plates (maybe 3 in. square?) that are bonded to the wing, one in each of the outboard bays, with a single wire running from the root to the most inboard plate where it is bonded to the plate. Then the wire continues to the next outboard plate, where it is again bonded and then runs on out to the final plate where it is bonded and stops. I think that antenna was used for the communications radio.

By the time I got the plane, it was disassembled for its third rebuild and there was no fixed loop behind the baggage compartment, just the mounting holes for it. I don't recall there being any sense wire mounting points for a long sense wire antenna between the top of the cabin and the top of the vertical stabilizer. When I get back home, I'll try to remember to dig out the 1950 Air Facts magazine which has the Leighton Collins flight review of the first Cruisemasters and see if any of the photos show an external sense wire.

Dave York
 
Cool.
I'm into tube radios as another hobby.
There is no good reason to use tube avionics. As they say.."They don't build them like they used to...and it's a d**ned good thing!"
None-the-less, I'd like to play with a funtioning vintage Radio Compass. I wonder if they are just low freq, or include the AM broadcast band like ADF's do?
I doubt anyone could even find all the parts to assemble such a system.
 
You would be surprised what you can find in some of the old-timers' hangars and shops, tucked away on a dusty old shelf or stashed up in the rafters.

Back in the late 60s, when I started to fly, one of the planes that I flew regularly was a Stinson 108-3 Station wagon. It had two radios - an old low frequency comm unit and a Narco Superhomer, with 10 or 12 discrete crystal tuned transmitting frequencies. At that time, all airports with control towers had a common frequency that they monitored. You would tune the Narco to the published frequency for the control tower and select the common tower frequency with the crystal select switch. You would talk on one frequency and listed on the published tower frequency. Communicating with FSS worked the same way. You cranked the dial around to the VOR frequency until you heard the VOR ID and selected the FSS crystal - 122.1, if I recall correctly. Again, you talked on one frequency and listened on the other. The low frequency unit was inoperative and no one cared, since there were no longer any LF communication systems.

Getting the first 90 channel Mark 5 radio installed in the plane was a real step up.

The radios were all tube driven until the early 70s, when Narco, King, and Genave came out with all transistor radios that fit entirely in the panel and no longer required the bulky and heavy remote power supply units that the tube systems required. I recall gaining nearly 20 pounds of useful load when replacing one of old tube radios with a new Genave unit. Also, the total DC power requirements dropped by about 10 amps for the transistor unit.

Avionics just keep getting better. 40 years ago, who would have thought that you would be able to slip a portable NAV/COM/GPS unit into your shirt pocket that could show your exact position to within about 25 feet. We are even on the verge of having affordable glass cockpits showing terrain, weather, FLIR and, soon, synthetic vision. Who knows, I might even live long enough to see what the next 25 years will bring.

Dave York
 
Hey, I loved my Omnigator. I guess I'm showing my age!!!!!!!With 25 available channels and whistlestop tuning,what more could you ask for? I could fly up and down the West Coast and never be out of some good FM music. However, the damned thing drew about 7-8amps off my generator. When you looked at the power supply at night, it looked like a glowing pile of embers from your BBQ. And this was in your luggage compartment!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top