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Sonoma Operational Area
Auxiliary
Communications
Service
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Sonoma Operational Area
Auxiliary Communications Service Wings Over Wine Country Airshow 2003 As usual, the Pacific Coast Air Museum put on a wonderful airshow this last year, and they are slated to pull it off again. ACS participated with 2929, our communications trailer, by serving as the conduit between three separate radio nets. If someone from one radio net needed to speak with someone on another net, ACS operators would pass the traffic almost like a human repeater. This worked out quite well and ACS is taking part even earlier this year in helping to guide with choices on how to set up the radio communications infrastructure so that it will run even more smoothly. Participating ACS Volunteers got to work shifts on the radios and walk around to enjoy a wonderful airshow. In the near future, we will again be signing up volunteers for this year's show. Below are links to some of the photos from the airshow. Use your browser's "Back" button to return, etc, etc. Enjoy.
Ken McTaggart, N6KM, and Bruce Giza, KF6CLH (Communications Organizer), participate
in an ACS pre-show briefing in 2929. Here are some of our volunteers posing for a shot.
Here are a couple of shots of 2929 parked next to a Russian MiG-15 jet fighter.
This jet fighter was built in Poland and made it's last Polish flight on
Feb. 20, 1992. The A-10 Thunderbolt (Warthog) is one awesome airplane.
The General Electric GAU-8/A Avenger seven barreled 30 mm
Gatling rotary cannon is 6.71 m (22') long and weighs 1,858 kg.
(4,091 lbs.) The shells each weigh 0.91 kg. (2 lbs.) The
ammunition drum can accommodate 1,174 rounds (high explosive
or armour piercing.) There are two rates of fire, either
2,100 rpm. or 4,200 rpm. Two hydraulic motors are used to feed
the ammunition belt at the higher rate of fire, one at
the lower rpm. The design fire duration is ten two second bursts
with a sixty second cooling off period between each
burst. It is said that the recoil from this cannon is
equal to the thrust of the engines and if the cannon could
be fired long enough, the plane would come to a dead stop. The airshow began with a skydiver who had an American flag
hanging from him with an airplane circling him on the way down.
The biplane that was circling the skydiver did a few maneuvers
once the skydiver had landed. He made some really exciting passes;
the photos don't do him justice. It might be a little bit cramped, but this BD5 fits a full
sized person... and can fly, too! Now here is something you don't see very often. How about a
F/A-18 E/F Super Hornet flying in formation with a P-51 Mustang? Yesteryear
meets today! And here's that crazy biplane pilot again! Copyright © 1997-2004 Sonoma
Op Area Auxiliary Communications Service
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