Airfield Wired Telebrief / Telebriefing System

HI all, first message here, so hope its in the right place!

I used to volunteer looking after the EE Lightnings XS452 and XS458 at Cranfield, for about 20 years until I had kids, then life took another direction!

I'm on top of how Telebrief works within the aircraft having followed through the circuit diagrams, but am looking to educate myself from an airfield infrastructure and system use point of view.


(XS458, 2018)

Background:
For readers who don't know what I'm on about:
Telebrief was a means of securely passing voice messages to the aircrew of aircraft sat on the ground awaiting a flight, think QRA. It was a hardwired system where a cable plugged into the aircraft, and went off to somewhere on the airfield (or perhaps elsewhere) to have someone speak instructions directly to the aircrew without using radio. When the telebrief connector is connected, a relay within the aircraft disconnects the aircrew headset form the normal VHF/UHF radio and instead swaps it over to the telebrief cable (and external amplifier system), thus making it impossible to accidentally transmit the commands by radio. When the relay is active (and radio disconnected) the cockpit lamp illuminates, the aircrew could also activate their microphones to speak back by pressing the illuminated switch.

I'm ideally looking for photos, facts, documents, wiring diagrams etc... (ie: real evidence) but failing that, any accurate memories will help.

I found a previous post on this forum where it was stated that the telebrief cables were retained in an oil drum. I also have heard this same concept mentioned by ex-RAF personnel in conversation over the years, but this is reliant on my fuzzy memory and theirs, ie: not backed up with evidence yet, however, the detailed description in the other thread is fairly convincing of this.

Going on with this, I found an image taken at Binbrook showing what look like white painted oil drums on the edge of the tarmac which may be the ones in question, even though the other thread mentioned yellow or later olive drab colours:



I'd love to be able to find a scan of an A.P. detailing the communications systems of RAF airfields in the 50's to 80's, ie: finding some real evidence, as all II have so far is a little hearsay about a oil drums!

I have found in the Lightning Vol.1 books reference to A.P.116N-0301-1 for details of telebriefing. I am hopeful that this AP would include at least some of the airfield side, as the aircraft side really is just simply a connector, a relay and an illuminated switch, which would not warrant a whole AP!

• Does anyone have an A.P. describing airfield communications systems?
• Does anyone have a copy of A.P.116N-0301-1 which details the telebrief system?
• Does anyone have a stores reference number of the large rubber plug, or a photograph of one? Having seen the aircraft side (resembling a rubber wine glass) I imagine it to be similar in size to a caravan/trailer light board vehicle plug.
• Any information on the amplifier system used?
• Was some form of switchboard employed to talk to specific aircraft instead of all plugged in?
• In the airfield buildings, was a standard telephone used for telebrief, or a desk speaker box?
• Could the telebrief system be connected to a telephone line to issue the pilot with commands form a remote location/office not on the airfield? Such as a radar site?
• Anything else that may help?

Many thanks, Scott.

PS: There is a mistake in one of the comments of the referenced previous thread: The framework that was used to disconnect the Houchin GPU cables form the Lightning port wing on QRA cannot have also carried the telebrief cable, as this plus into the starboard wing. Sorry, I have an issue with misinformation as it can mess up good research.