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Stumbled on a stat about old ARINC specs that made me feel ancient
I was digging through some old manuals in the hangar at 3 AM during a slow night shift, looking for a pinout on a 1970s Collins radio, and I found a note that said the original ARINC 404 trays weighed nearly 12 pounds empty. That blew my mind because the composite trays we use now are maybe 3 pounds. It got me thinking about how much extra fuel we must have burned back then just hauling around all that heavy metal. I remember my first job in the early 2000s where we still had a few 404 boxes on a cargo 727, and I hated wrestling them out of the rack. Makes you appreciate how far we've come with lightweight LRUs and carbon fiber panels. Has anyone else run across old spec sheets that made you stop and think about how different the job used to be?
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kim6934mo ago
OH MY GOD 12 pounds EMPTY?! That is absolutely WILD. I knew the old stuff was heavy but I never imagined the tray itself weighed that much. I remember seeing a rack full of those old black boxes on a retired 727 and just looking at the size of the heat sinks and thinking "no wonder those things never overheated.
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