Aircraft Instrument Query

[Paul Bradley]

Two new e-Bay purchases, was wondering if anyone can help with a couple of queries about them:

 

 

Sperry Gyrosyn CL2 gyro unit - as used on Canberras, Shacks and other large aircraft. Wish I could find out what exact type it came out of! Can anyone tell by the data plate? 

 

009 by Paul Bradley, on Flickr

 

012 by Paul Bradley, on Flickr

 

 

 

And this Badin Anemometre 35-11 Type 102-1 - post-war French air speed indicator, nothing in the listing to indicate what type and I can find nothing comparable on the internet - ideas? :

 

013 by Paul Bradley, on Flickr

 

014 by Paul Bradley, on Flickr

 

 

Edited January 8, 2020 by Paul Bradley

[Wez]

Paul,

 

The problem with your Sperry unit is if it could have been fitted to any of those aircraft then it's likely to have at some point.

 

MoD procurement would specify the instrumentation to be fitted to a type of aircraft, that would be provided as GFE - Government Furnished Equipment to the manufacturer for delivery with the aircraft.  The MoD would usually specify as much equipment that could be used across multiple types for economies of scale, they used to have repair organisations for all of these assets.

 

Say your instrument was fitted to a Canberra on delivery, the first time it went unserviceable it would go into the repair loop to be fixed.  It would then sit in stock waiting for the next demand of that Section & reference number the (6B/1992), when the demand came in it would be whisked away to fill that hole.  If the same part could be used on Canberra, Shackleton, Argosy, Victor, Vulcan then it would go anywhere, wherever it was needed.

 

This was also applied to radios and other common parts and it's not just the MoD that do this, I would imagine it applies to pretty much all air arms and even commercial airlines all over the world.

 

Modern asset tracking systems would be able to give you the history of that item back to when it was created on that system but not necessarily its previous history.  Unfortunately, they post date your item.

 

So unfortunately, there's no way of telling exactly which aircraft it has come off of

[Paul Bradley]

Thanks for the explanation, Wez - useful info! Makes sense that they'd be transferable. 

 

I just got a reply back from the eBay seller. He tells me that these instruments were from a box of stuff he got from the CAF Wing in Mesa AZ, and they told him that they came from their old CASA 2-111 and were surplus after it crashed. Now, quite why either of these instruments would have been fitted to a Spanish bomber is a mystery, if not a complete misunderstanding! It is not beyond the bounds of possibility, but seems highly unlikely on the face of it!

 

Now there were some Canberras stored at that airfield until quite recently, so the Sperry might well have come from one of them. 

Edited January 8, 2020 by Paul Bradley

[Wez]

35 minutes ago, Paul Bradley said:

Now, quite why either of these instruments would have been fitted to a Spanish bomber is a mystery, if not a complete misunderstanding! It is not beyond the bounds of possibility, but seems highly unlikely on the face of it!

Retrofit due to obsolescence/unavailability of the original components.

 

More likely to have come from a Canberra though.