Yet another annoying old story from the days

[67Dart273]

This post

http://www.forabodiesonly.com/mopar/showthread.php?t=318102

reminded me

When I was stationed at Miramar, two of our "pieces of gear" my crew was responsible for, was two identical "QUAD" RADARs the ITT Gilfillan FPN-36. This is a small RADAR originally designed to be "portable" so it can be set up quickly at forward fields. At Miramar, they were both installed on permanent concrete hard stands

A representative FPN-36:

A photo "video capture" of those very two, between the parallel runways at Miramar. "They ain't there," anymore

[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bg-hRSitQRU"]F-0418 Seaview: Miramar Naval Air Station - YouTube[/ame]

Anyhow, those RADAR never had the U.S. Navy Official Approved "PM" system (preventive maintenance) card system or books. This is same as scheduled stuff on your car, oil changes, repack bearing, whatever.

So the Navy hired a local outfit to re-write the documentation, and create the PM system. Anyway, they came to our shop and "bothered" us. Of course WE didn't get paid extra for this!!!! One of the items as the "AZ-EL something or other gearbox." This was a gearbox on top of the RADAR that gear drove the two antennas. "Somebody" decided that periodic oil change was necessary, but the original books said to "drain the oil, re-install the drain plug, then fill with typ Mil Spec blishy bloshy ABC mkII etc etc UNTIL THE LEVEL IS EVEN WITH THE SIGHT PLUG on the side of the case.

"The outfit" doing these new docs "had" to know "how much." "I don't know," says I, "you just put a funnel in there and fill it until it falls out the sight plug."

Well, THAT was not frickin' GOOD enough. We had to go out, "take" one of the RADAR, drain the frickin oil, MEASURE it in a beaker, REFILL a measured amount, and had to REPEAT this 4 or 5 times to get an average.

So, different guys in the crew "remembered" later, what they had been associated with, when the new books came out. And of course we had to look that up.

And it said, in brief:

drain the oil.

install the plug

replace with Mil Spec blishy bloshy etc etc SO MANY OUNCES

THEN CONTINUE FILLLING UNTIL even with the sight plug LMAO!!!!

 

[Hemioutlaw]

Ha Ha,
Sounds like the military.

Used to drive by Miramar often enroute to Diego and it's a miracle there wasn't more wrecks on Interstate 15 as everybody OOOhed and AAAhed at the fighter jets scrambling overhead. No longer live in Cali and somebody told me the other day that it's no longer the Air Force Top Gun school and taken over by the Marines. ....Hmmmmm?

 

[67Dart273]

Not Air Farce, it was Navy. At the time (70's) it was "Fightertown, USA" the most active Navy Air Station in the states. "Top Gun" was the Fighter Weapons School, which to my understanding ? trained all pilots, Navy, AF, or Marines

Yup. Now it's a Marine outfit. "Where our old shop was" seems to have been concreted over with more ramp space. At the time there was a "bore sight range" a huge long building for sighting in the guns on (don't remember) F-8 and A-5 I think. Our shop was pretty much "off the back end" of the bore sight range.

 

[65LoveAffair]

I was there in the late 90s for a couple months going to school, and it was already in transition from the Navy to the Marines. It just wasn't the same.

 

[RustyRatRod]

That's uDDerly hilarious, Del. Thanks for the laugh.

 

[adriver]

Transmission fluid in gear box?
Is that common?

 

[67Dart273]

Transmission fluid in gear box?
Is that common?

LOL. This was decades ago. "Mil Spec" something, hell it could have BEEN ATF for all I know. My recollection is, about the same "looking" as 5w motor oil.

 

[adriver]

I was talking about the link.
My memory is now telling me that my 79 Civic had trans fluid in the 4 speed gear box.
So long ago I could be having brain farts.

 

[Mopar Tim]

Damn! I remember those radars in Miramar! I was a FTM, Missile Fire Control Tech in the Navy. I joined in 1978. I was stationed at NAS San diego for 5 years. I was an instructor at BEE school. Basic electricity electronics school. I was at Miramar on several occasions. MT

 

[67Dart273]

I was there, spring of 70-74. In 72, I should have been assigned a GCA unit overseas. At the time the Navy had a funding flap similar to the recent US govt stoppage. They extended a bunch of people "in place" so I was there for 2 more years

Had a part time job at the auto hobby shop

We had the two QUADs, and an FPN-52, which is near as I can tell similar to an FPN -16. This was a CPN-4 derivitave, which originallly had a 30-something search RADAR, the GCA approach (precision) RADAR, and 3 UHF, and 3 VHF radios, all in the "OPS" van. The '16 and '52 stripped this all down, had the AC unit and the precision RADAR in the ops trailer.

Representative CPN-4 Ops trailer on left, maintenance trailer containing spares, workbench and the AC unit on the right. Here, it is pointing away from us, down the runway, the aircraft would approach at upper right. Wherever this is, the unit is on a "turntable" so it can be rotated facing the other way. Ours was fixed in place. Some of these at less "fancy" fields had to be towed by the "prime mover" (truck) to line up a different runway. This was no small task, as it had to be placed, leveled, tied down, and re-aligned for accuracy. I've no idea the time that might have taken

Our '52 was mounted on concrete, not mobile. The system had MTI, (Moving Target Indicator---it cancels out ground clutter) and this RADAR was installed by us "new" in 70. We could not get the MTI to sit still. Turned out it was because the damned AC compressor was vibrating the MTI (mercury) delay line.

One day my partner and I were up at the tower, and one of the "ACs" wanted to know "how come that fancy new 52 is always down."

I told him we could not get the MTI to stay online

He says "Hell we don't need MTI."

So they had a meeting of all the big wheels, and it was decided to operate without MTI LMAO.

This was a hell of a good job. Our shop was isolated out by the runways, we had lots of perks, and we worked "24 on and 48 off." A picnic, let me tell ya.

 

[Ken Long]

Well, I know this is an old thread but...

I was an ETR at NAS Miramar from 1978 to 1980. My job was maintaining and repairing the FPN-52, the two FPN-36's (Quads), and lent a hand to the tacan tech. The last few of months of my tour there was when the '52 got replaced by a brand new system. I wasn't involved in that much. Good times, those!

 

[greymouser7]

The exact volume in ounces sounds EXACTLY like my job.