Jim Wilkins wrote:


This suggests that fighter radios were pre-tuned on the ground and the
pilot could only switch between two preset frequencies.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AN/ARC-5
"The two transmitters would be fixed-tuned before take-off, with the
pilot able to select the desired transmitter and control the mode
(Voice, MCW, CW) at the transmitter control box."
and
"Such receivers were not remotely tuned by the pilot, but were instead
lock-tuned to the associated transmitter's frequency before take-off."
Right, in the cramped cockpit of the fighter, there wasn't room for a
bunch of controls. There were remote tuning controls that drove the
actual tuning mechanism on the receiver and transmitter through something
that looked like a speedometer cable, and there was a little crank and
indicator dial in the cockpit. These may have even been too much for
the fighters, and were only used on larger planes.

Also, at least some of the fighters were such a huge pilot workload
to fly that nobody would ever want to be messing with retuning radios
in flight. You had mixture, manifold pressure, EGT, prop governor,
supercharger gear ratio and a plane that had minimal stability, really
bad torque effect and pepole were even SHOOTING at you!

Jon