Did you work on or use a computer in the military?

[Ed Waldrup]

In 966 I worked on a navigational computer used in the Air Force C-141. It had a memory drum with the positions of 59 stars and planets on it. The Navigator would input latitude and longitude for each leg of the flight and the ASN-24 would drive the autopilot and fly the airplane. Navigators would update the present position with a sextant. Today GPS does this much more accurately. The Doppler radar computer would compute ground track and groundspeed in knots. It used a phantastron tube and had three beams to derive the doppler shift. Fond memories.

[William D. Fritz]

Ed: Bill Fritz here. Yes, I used computer in most of my assignments following Survival school. They were rather rudimentary in the beginning, but toward the end we were using computers in the ECM world that could respond to a radar signal pulse fast enough to lead the arriving next pulse ( eg 5,000 pulses / second) and put a deception program such a velocity gate pull off, false target angle gate pull off, on each successive pulse. Pretty neat stuff. In the B-52G we had Spin Genes which was the first INS with a mass that was a yard wide. A good one would only precess a few minutes in a 12 hour flight. Then, in the Pentagon we got into "personal" computers. I don't remember the make, but we were using floppy discs that were larger than the 5" ones we used in the early Macs. Problem then became that we needed EMI security boxes for each and every computer to keep them from emitting any signals that could be received / collected by the Soviets. After service, to E-Systems in Greenville and my third MAC ( at home an Apple II and Apple IIE). I see we have an EF-111A pilot in our group. I was the EF-111A Development Program Element Monitor (PEM) in the P'gon in RD, defended the bird against the GAO assaults and worked with B/G Bert Harbor at ASD where the EW Package was developed. I provided the funding and direction through AFSC, and begged out as soon as the LRIP (Low Rate Initial Production)passed GAO analysis. 6,000 hours in a BUFF / 185 combat missions incl 3 nights in Linebacker II in a G. You SAR guys pulled out my next door neighbor on the first night into Hanoi.
Some of the best years of my life on a crew.

[William D. Fritz]

Ed: Not sure how to add to the "comment wall"

Bill