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Aviation History
1955
1955 - 1205.PDF
FLIGHT, 26 August 1955 (Lett) One of the basic types of test vehicle—known as HT.V.I—is launched. (Right) Missile-tracking radar, operating on the Doppler principle. AT WOOMERA ... Weapons Research Establishment, is to locate as large a part ofthe facilities as possible in Salisbury, so as to keep to the minimum the number of people required in the more costly environmentof Woomera. The cost of maintaining staff at Woomera is roughly 1\ times that of keeping them at Salisbury. In addition, althoughtransport to Woomera is well developed, the physical difficulties of maintaining a large community there are great, and the isola-tion from manufacturing, supply and other resources of Adelaide would be a serious handicap. The establishment of the under-taking in Salisbury has been accompanied by great progress in the surrounding district generally. Housing and other amenitieshave been set up, and there has been a big increase in population. New industries have been established, and recently the SouthAustralian Government has chosen an area nearby for the site of a large satellite town to be built progressively over the nextten years. The technical work done under the joint undertaking at Salis-bury falls generally under four headings: trials and instrumenta- tion, engineering, administration, and air support (R.A.A.F.). The trials group deals with the planning and conduct of trials.Planning includes the arrangement of installations required for carrying out the trials, and of the necessary instrumentation. Amathematical services section converts the data recorded in the trials—obtained mostly from photographic film or magnetic tape—to usable graphical and numerical forms, and analyses the information so obtained. To alleviate the vast amount of routinehand work involved in reading and converting the raw data from the ranges, numerous data-reducing machines are in operation.For analysis and computation, punched-card machinery is in use at present, but it will shortly be replaced by an electronicdigital computer made by the English firm of Elliott Brothers (London), Ltd. The instrumentation group develops and provides the vastrange of electronic, optical and other types of instruments for use in the trials. Many of these have to be automatic in operation Home on (or near) the range—a brick-built house in the village. (Below) Instrumentation building. Range "E". (Below, right) Test shop No. 4 on the same range. and of quite novel design to suit the specialized needs whichconstandy arise. The engineering group administers the drawing office andindustrial section of the Establishment. Extensive, well-equipped workshops are maintained at Salisbury, capable of undertakingthe wide variety of work necessitated by the nature of the under- taking). The engineering group is also responsible for suchmatters at Woomera. The air support is provided by the Royal Australian Air Forcecomponent of the Weapons Research Establishment. Initially based at Mallala, 40 miles from Adclaide? it has now been trans-ferred to Edinburgh Airfield, built specially for the purpose at Salisbury. Operations are also conducted from airfields in theWoomera area. The R.A.A.F. component, besides being respon- sible for all the flying facilities for weapons trials, operates andmaintains all pilotless target aircraft, including the Australian Jindivik. The work of the Weapons Research Establishment is also sup-ported by various organizations outside the Department of Supply. The R.A.A.F. has already been mentioned; in addition, both theArmy and the Navy contribute personnel. The Department of Works undertakes all construction work, including electricalsupply and wiring, water supply, sewerage, etc. \
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