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Aviation History
1956
1956 - 1727.PDF
7 Decen&rr 1956 891 The three photographs on these t¥ro pages were taken at the M.O.S. establishment at Aberporth, where in- tensive tests of guided missiles are conducted. Civilians and personnel of all three Services work in close co- operation. On the right, a wing commander and a major prepare an RTV-2 for firing. Opposite, in the lower view, is the Navy's Clausen Rolling Platform, which can subject its triple launcher and radar equipment to the motions of a ship. The heading picture shows a range officer at the firing-control panel in the operations room. transmitter and Teduced if it moves away, just as theapparent pitch of a locomotive whistle varies accord- ing to whether it is going towards, or away from, anobserver. At short ranges it is possible to obtain quite satisfactory reflections from a bare missile air-frame (the "skin Doppler" technique), but at greater distances the missile has to carry a transponder. Thelatter, a familiar device used on radar targets, amplifies the reflected signal and also doubles itsfrequency. This is compared with the original and the resulting beat frequency gives the velocity. Thelarger and positive return signal from the trans- ponder is particularly valuable at the end of theboost phase of a ground-launched weapon, when the sky may be full of falling metal from the boostersand attachments. The diagram below clarifies the method bywhich integrated Doppler frequencies can give range while a single kine-theodolite gives direction. Both —accurate and convenient, this principle is widely used. Alternatively one can employ two kine-theodolites, as also shown. Yet another method is to use the M.T.S. equipment, with two lock-onradar dishes, one behind the launcher and the other some way down the range, whose bearing andelevation are recorded. Such an arrangement is valuable in bad weather, when visual contact mayquickly be lost. One of the most-used radars—in Britain and the U.S.A.—is the old American Type584 set, used for anti-aircraft work in 1944-45. It has features which make it eminently suited tomissile work, including quick servo response, good range and multiple drive outlets. Perhaps the worst job in missile development isthe reduction of data. A single flight lasting a minute or two may produce literally millions of figures, fromfilm, photographs, punched card, magnetic wire or tape recordings, from telemetry and other sources. Pending theavailability of fully automatic systems—which must come— readers are used which specialize in various systems. In Col. 2is outlined one of the typical British systems currently in use to obtain missile-position data, and below it is a proposed re-placement system. In America more advanced arrangements are already in use. The Potter Instrument company have evolveda unit which digitizes (if such a word is permissible) Doppler information direct on to magnetic tape for storage; and the H. A.Wagner company's Radon (Recording Angular Data Optical Tracking Theodolite) system instantly converts position infor-mation into punched-card or tape form. At the "Open Day" of the National Physical Laboratory this year a plotting-table unitwas on view, capable of working automatically from punched- card data. As a striking photograph overleaf emphasizes, cameras aremounted on the target aircraft. In most cases it carries a Streamlined "pod" at each wing tip, and a typical load for onepod is a total of eight cameras. The latter are high-speed, shock- proof cine units with 145-deg wide-angle lenses so that the whole Two systems of tracking, described in the text above: left, 0t and Dr are Doppler transmitter and receiver, and KT is a kine-theodolite; right, A and B are kine-theodolites and G is the missile ground position. battery has a perfect view of the whole area of sky around theaircraft. The cameras are normally started and synchronized by radio pulses from the central timing unit of the range. Everysingle record associated with a firing is precisely related to range time—which is itself governed by a quartz-stabilized clock at therange head. In the development of a sophisticated missile system the firstfirings are relatively simple and are aimed at the proving of the airframe, sustainer, boost configuration, stability, and equallybasic problems. To save expense scale models may be employed for certain trials at this stage. It is only at this period of develop-ment that it is possible to carry out the survival trials already Typical data-reduction system in current British use and (lower diagram) a suggested method to replace it. READING MICROSCOPE Keyboard unit Storage console Saro special eomputor Automatic typewriter Monitor Auto card punch DEUCE computor Tabulated trajectory and velocity KT DT HILGER AND WATTS SEMI-AUTOMATIC READERI Special computor Auto typewriter BASE LINE Auto card punch DEUCE-* >-Teleprinter •—Output converter—• Auto typewriter Auto plotting table
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