About the Plane

In storage at the National Air and Space Museum is a North American SNJ-4 which is quite the time capsule. This is why aircraft in museum's are a good thing. Even though this aircraft is not factory original it is still a great resource. She was overhauled at Pensacola in June of 1953. A 12 volt SNJ-4 overhauled but not updated as late as 1953 complete with her original compliment of radios. Very cool!

I took these photos during a visit in 2005


What appears to be a SCR-183 radio set. Army radios in a Navy trainer. Not as uncommon as you might think

Classic Pensacola (most NARF it seems) zinc chromate overspray on everything for corrosion protection. I have had several SNB/UC-45/RC-45 aircraft that received the same treatment but I do wonder if some of this may be older museum touchup. Maybe the NASM files on this aircraft would shed light on this.

Spare receiver tuning coil located behind the pilots right elbow

The tuning coils for the transmitter are stowed behind the aft cockpit. I guess if you wanted to change a coil you would have it passed forward. The location of the radios looks like it would be really difficult to do anything but turn the crank handle of the receiver. The pilot could sort of see the face of the transmitter but certainly not the face of the receiver.

The transmitter still has the snap slides safetied on the shock mount and the tuning coil which I would bet is original since the radioman did it last. Note the 5-53 overhaul stamps on the antenna relay also matching the overhaul date of the aircraft.

This observation from Dave Stinson:

The coil in the transmitter and the Master Oscillator setting infer that the transmitter was tuned to 3.105 MC, which would be the most commonly used air-to-ground freq. for a ship flying in CONUS. All major civilian airports and most military ones would be guarding 3105 along with 6210 and, in the case of Army Airways stations, 4495.

Very cool! It's so original that even the radio was still tuned to its last in service frequency. Thanks for that Dave!

Lots of instruments with Munsell green on the faces. Note the 12v stencil and Pensacola OH stamp on the interphone amplifier.

Even the fire extinguisher has a Pensacola overhaul stamp