Furuno Radar Problem

[Lynn Coffelt]

What Island was that? I spent a year at Shemya (aka "The Rock")

That was it. I worked out at the AAFJOG on Shemya for about 8 months in
1966, we were a small detachment from NAVCOMMSTA Adak.

Jack

We sent a reserve crew from Travis to Shemya one weekend in the early
1970's, flying a C-141, carrying rebar for...... what was it? Cobra Dane
maybe?
Anyway, the reserve pilot debriefed back at Travis that he landed, did
an "engine running" offload, and departed without ever seeing the ground.
The snow was blowing sideways in a virtual whiteout, and all he could see
was the tail-lights of the "follow-me" vehicle, and the wands of the
"marshaller"
I heard the debrief.... was it really like that at times?
Old Chief Lynn

 

[Jack Erbes]

We sent a reserve crew from Travis to Shemya one weekend in the early
1970's, flying a C-141, carrying rebar for...... what was it? Cobra Dane
maybe?
Anyway, the reserve pilot debriefed back at Travis that he landed, did
an "engine running" offload, and departed without ever seeing the ground.
The snow was blowing sideways in a virtual whiteout, and all he could see
was the tail-lights of the "follow-me" vehicle, and the wands of the
"marshaller"
I heard the debrief.... was it really like that at times?

Yeah, on a nice day. :>)

Like many places in the chain, most of the snow blew by and was blown
off before it accumulated much. But the winds and chill factors were
not to be taken lightly in any season. But we spent a lot of time out
boondocking and roaming the island when we could, there wasn't much else
to do there.

Actually Shemya was pretty small island, about 4 miles by 2 miles,
fairly flat with most of it about 200 feet ASL.

The runway was about 12,000 feet. There was an another abandoned/unused
runway that featured the remains of a B-17 that was used for crash crew
training.

In the mid 60's Shemya was the home of a joint Air Force Security
Service/Army Security Agency element, I was in a co-located Naval
Security Group Detachment. The over dramatic people used to say we were
"DIPs". Our job was to die in place with ears and eyes open.

Shemya was also home to a big fixed array radar (AN/FPS-17? AN/FPS-80?)
that would occasionally cause birds that few through the "sweet spot"
too close to the array to fall out of the air dead. The little arctic
foxes were grateful for that, a lot of them lived in the area below the
dead bird drop zone. Some of the foxes would take food out of your hand.

Some interesting and not often seen aircraft used to visit and operate
out of Shemya, it was a "spooky" place to say the least. The runway was
at a right angle to the prevailing winds, when the VQ-1 EA3B "Whales"
landed they sometimes used the arresting gear because of their narrow
landing gear and the cross winds.

http://community-2.webtv.net/@HH!93!42!D0AB2268A640/Det1Shemya/TalesofTheWhale/

I helped the VQ-1 Det guys reset the arresting gear once. It was two
lengths of huge chain and they had to be dragged back into place with a
big font end loader. The catch wire was rigged across the runway,
shackled to the end links, on the approach end. The catch wire was
tensioned with two "come alongs" and held up off the ground with some
tires cut in half. The come alongs exploded with each use and were
replaced. Seeing the EA3B take the arresting gear was pretty spectacular.

The base there is now called Eareckson Air Station:

http://www.globalsecurity.org/space/facility/shemya.htm

Like all my sea stories, this one is a no shitter. Here is a little bit
more of the story:

http://www.navycthistory.com/shemya_1.html

Jack

 

[Bruce in Alaska]

We sent a reserve crew from Travis to Shemya one weekend in the early
1970's, flying a C-141, carrying rebar for...... what was it? Cobra Dane
maybe?
Anyway, the reserve pilot debriefed back at Travis that he landed, did
an "engine running" offload, and departed without ever seeing the ground.
The snow was blowing sideways in a virtual whiteout, and all he could see
was the tail-lights of the "follow-me" vehicle, and the wands of the
"marshaller"
I heard the debrief.... was it really like that at times?
Old Chief Lynn

Hell, it is "Really like that" on some days NOW..... Just ask any
North Pacific or Bering Sea Crabber...... there are days when the only
thing they see are Radar Returns, and MAYBE Pot Bouys closer than 100 Ft.
You really know it is Blowing when all the snow is going horozontal or
upwards..... and the seas are 40ft Swell, with a 10ft Chop running
perpendicular to the Swell..... like riding a CorkScrew Rollercoaster,
24/7, for days at a time....

Bruce in alaska who gets Seasick, just thinking about it.....

 

[Jack Erbes]

I was there in '82-'83 working at the Cobra Dane (the replacement for
the FPS-108). The wind was a constant 25 knots or so and the high
temperature the year I was there was 55F. The low was only 7F but
with the wind it was like a least -17F. When the wind really blew we
would have to go out roped together. Trying to keep this on topic a
little bit...You could take "bad" flourescent light bulbs to the top
of the building and drop them in front of radar and they would light
up before they broke 6 stories below. Funny thing was the Russians
used to bring trawlers within 2-300 yards to gather intel even thouhgh
we vectored our aircraft far away...!

We never did see a trawler while I was there, and we were "pretty well
informed" from the stuff that went on inside the AAFJOG.

The six story drop was the Cobra Dane array? I never saw that.

I seem to remember the old array being on the edge of a cliff that was
pretty high. At the bottom of it there was an old (WW II or so?) fuel
dump and there were thousands of empty 55 gallon steel drums rusting
into oblivion down there and getting overgrown with tundra. There were
a lot of foxes living in those drums.

There was only one dog on the island in 1966. It was Boozer, a "Navy
dog" originally from Adak. He had been quite a drinker in his earlier
days but he got to be a mean drunk. It was finally forbidden in the
standing orders for anyone to give him any more booze. We Navy guys
from Adak had a soft spot in our hearts for Boozer, he was the only
"squid" sentenced to "life on the rock."

I coaxed Boozer into the Composite once or twice but he generally did
not like it indoors, it was too warm for him I think.

Remember the graves of the unknown Russian sailors? Down near the
piers? We Navy guys used to traditionally clean the the grave sites up
about once a year or so.

There were all kinds of wild stories about how and why those bodies came
to be buried there. We heard that they were fishermen and that the
Soviet Union declined to accept their bodies when they were recovered to
or washed up on Shemya. I suppose by now the story is that it was a
Spetznaz team that drowned making a covert approach from a submerged
submarine.

Yeah, that's the ticket. They jumped me while I was out boondocking and
I had to take them out! I took them all on and slashed their throats
with my guhor stick. :>)

Jack

 

[Sun Dragon]

I have a small Furuno radar where the echo return image is missing on the
left and right portion of the screen. The fore and aft images are fine.

I suspect the "brushes" or slip rings in the scanner unit are worn in the 2
o clock thru 4 o clock and the 8 o clock thru 10 o clock regions.
Am i correct in this assumption and if so, are kits available to renew the
contacts in the scanner?

Thanks,

Capt J. Vincent Collins
Master Oceans
F/V Sun Dragon