"Barber Pole" Indicators I am trying to find information on the [Barber Pole indicators](https://history.nasa.gov/afj/ap17fj/pics/prplnt-ind-p2.jpg) used in the Apollo...
RagnarTheTerrible replied:
The guys over at r/orbiter might know a little. A few years ago there was an Apollo simulator add-on, freeware I believe. I never tried it. It doesn’t work on the latest version of Orbiter. You may be able to get in touch with the people who made it?
hobbified replied:
The shuttle had ones that were almost identical, if that's any help.
EvilSandman replied:
Here is the best explanation i could find. Seems it's just a mechanical talkback. So it shows if something is in progress or out of norm. https://space.stackexchange.com/questions/24138/apollo-17-what-is-a-barber-pole-and-what-did-it-is-gray-mean
oneironaut replied:
If you're willing to spend some money to find them, the engineering drawings (or at least the specification control drawings) for them are very likely stored on microfilm in the National Archives at Fort Worth. The archivists there will scan them for you, but it costs $4 per aperture card so it can get expensive. Unfortunately you'll have to know the drawing/part number for the talkbacks so they can find it (they've got more than 2 million aperture cards of Apollo drawings so searching without a number is impossible).
For the command module, the talkbacks will have a drawing number of the form V36-xxxxxx if they were manufactured in-house at North American, and a number of the form MExxx-xxxx if procured from a third party. Similarly, those in the LM would be numbered LDWxxx-xxxxx if manufactured by Grumman, or (I think) LSCxxx-xxxxx if procured.
If you're not able to find a number directly, you can often determine what it is from assembly drawings that contain the thing you're looking for. These will all be V36- or LDW- drawings. [Systems Handbooks](https://virtualagc.github.io/virtualagc/links.html#Systems_Handbooks) for the spacecraft are often good places to start trying to find these numbers, and may even contain some of the detail you're looking for. For example, from the CSM-114 Systems Handbook, here is a list of NAA drawings for the main panel, which has talkbacks: https://i.imgur.com/zAfmqRW.png
Once you find a number, email ftworth.archives@nara.gov with it, and tell them it will be in the RG 255 Apollo Drawing collection. If they're able to locate it, they'll email you back with the number of cards and scanning cost. Beware that they will frequently have several (or even many) revisions of the drawings on file, lots of drawings are more than one page long, and larger drawings are often imaged in sections -- so you could have a 2-page drawing end up on 8 aperture cards if it was particularly large, and that could explode into 40 cards if they have 5 revisions of it.
Hope this helps. Let me know if you have any questions. Good luck finding it!
Span0201 replied:
This isn't exactly the part, but seems to be similar. They call them position symbol indicators. http://www.aicinpa.com/products.htm