From: jonathon (jemery@execpc.com)
Date: Fri Jul 12 2002 - 21:00:30 PDT
>>I am buying a Chenowth FAV. It is the older two-seat version. Does any one
>>have any experience with this vehicle that they can share?
I was an engineer for a defense contractor from the early 80's till 92,
Emerson Electric specifically. We had FAV's all over the place for awhile.
The guys across the isle were test engineers on various projects with the
FAV's. I took every opportunity to go over to the plant and poke around.
Amongst the rows and rows of M113's that were being converted to M901 ITV
(Improved TOW's) and M981 (FISTV) there was the odd FAV. I'll try to tell
you what I know. The main two guys that worked this project that would know
all the details are dead, I found that out a couple years ago when I called
back there to find out FAV info for someone else.
> I was completely unaware that there was ever
>an issued 2-seater without the gun seat and cage.
Every one we had was only the two seat version.
>Chenowth's own web site shows the issue FAV:
>
> http://www.chenowth.com/FAV.html
>
>but I have emailed to them several times for more information and they
>have never replied. They would be the ones to ask since they are the
>source.
This is totally understandable. Some people make a big deal out of a
company not talking to them about past defense projects, this is normal.
There is no mechanism within these companies to deal with the public and
there is no central mechanism of project information archiving. The only
people that know about any particular program are the ones that worked on it
and even then most people would not talk about anything as you never want to
take a chance with security issues. Most all these things have some degree
of classification, however silly or pointless. Now in the case of Chenowth,
they are not primarily a defense contractor so I'd be surprised that they
would want to talk unless there is something class'd about it, I doubt it
though. You just need to find the right person to talk to. Perhaps call up
and ask for engineering, that usually gets me to the people that know what's
up. Or if it's a smaller company ask for the owner, or the owner/gm at the
time period your talking about.
>.., does your future FAV have the "CHENOWTH" stencil cut out of
>the steel plate on the front bumper?
I do recall this plate on the ones we had.
> I'd love to know if your
>2-seater is a real issue FAV.
As far as I know it would be. Some of our units went to Granada, the
reports we got back were very good. Not sure what happened to the entire
concept after that. Never saw a three seat one.
>Also, on the FAV topic, does anyone on this list know the engine and
>transmission that were used on the issue FAV? I have never seen the
>back end of an FAV. I can't imagine that they would use a VW engine,
>although that's what most sand rails use.
I heard some of them running around and it sure did sound like a beetle but
I am afraid to say that I never got a close look at the ones that were in
testing (see below).
> I read
>somewhere that it was available with a diesel engine, but I never
>found confirmation of that.
All of the FAV's that I looked over closely in the plant where Diesel, for
sure. Now at the time I was not all that Diesel savy, but from fading
memory I'd say it's a good bet that it was that little 1.6L inline 4 that
VW used on the Rabbit and turbo'd for several other VW applications
(Vanagon, Quantum, etc.) It was water cooled, the radiator was mounted
overhead in between the angled frame rails that ran from the top down and
back to the rear of the vehicle. I do believe they had turbo's. I recall
that I was not very impressed with the way they were done, kind of an
overall kluge job, but then I was at the time doing avionics and radar (
against my wishes), perhaps my standards were higher. I recall the guys
across the isle talking about how they hated the Diesels because they were
so doggy compared to the gas and tail heavy. They used civilian gages with
orange needles for example, I don't recall anything in the electrical dept
being mil spec.
I wish I knew more about what all we installed on them. The only system I
know for fact is a 30mm chain gun. It was mounted on a movable mount that
almost looked like two top bows close together, but more massive, that
pivoted from sort of the middle of the doorway down low. This gave two
firing positions. If the 'bows' were vertical it could be fired overhead.
They could also lay the 'bows' down and the gun ended up laying on the hood
sort of and they could fire it there also. I have(had) actual video test
footage of live fire testing of the FAV with the 30mm gun both up and down.
You can see the rather major jolt imparted to the vehicle which is taken up
mostly by the rear suspension. Unfortunately I have misplaced this video
since the big move in 92. I also had semi-live fire testing of TOW
launchers in all three Hummer prototypes (AMG, Teradyne, and Chrysler). By
semi-live I mean they had the first rocket motor (very fast burn) that shot
the whole thing out of the launcher, but not the second one that propelled
it to the target (that's what they told me anyway). During a test with the
AMG unit firing backwards you could see the hood actually jump up against
the rubber tie downs from the vacuum resulting from the blast going
overhead. One of these tests blew out (sucked out) the windshield, it was
laying on the hood afterwords. Also on that tape was hump testing of the
M901 and/or M981. This means chaining them down to a rail car and running
that car at a controlled speed into a set number of loaded cars to simulate
having to go thru a hump yard. One of the tests the rear chains snapped and
the vehicle rolled forward and then hit the front chains, fortunately they
held else it would have gone rolling onto the next car.
It's all rather distressing, if there was some way I could have transfered
back to vehicle type programs I would still be working there but I ended up
having to quit to get out of radar. Oh well....
Hope this was of some use.
later,
je
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