FlightGlobal.com
Home
Premium
Archive
Video
Images
Forum
Blogs
Jobs
Shop
RSS
Email Newsletters
You are in:
Home
Aviation History
1958
1958-1- - 0446.PDF
450 FLIGHT, 12 September 1958 A highlight of the static exhibits —"static" in this case being some- thing of a misnomer—was Marconi's vast S.264 50 cm surveillance aerial. ON THE GROUND . . . Cossor's new CR.787 airfield radar is a successor to the same company's CR.21. Comments on the new equipment appear in the text on the right. Radio and radar THE United Kingdom was perhaps the first country to put groundscanning radar seriously to work in the service of air-traffic control; it did so with the commissioning of the original microwave earlywarning station at London Airport. This happened a good many years ago, and since that time radar has gone on expanding tothe point where it is no longer an adjunct to A.T.C.—it is an essential pan of it. Complicated as A.T.C. is even now, the comingof jet movement on a large scale and the mixing of this traffic with conventional kinds will still further complicate a situationwhich internationally is giving rise to a great deal of hard thinking. The announcement by the M.T.C.A. of plans for large-scaleexpansion of the ground radar facilities in the technical support services of the U.K. airways system came as a recognition of theseriousness of the problem which confronts the civil air.transport business. It is a step fully justified by the intrinsic worth of radaras the "eyes" of the controller; and it is emphasized, if emphasis be needed, by the present unsatisfactory state, internationallyspeaking, of the short-range navaids position. So for the civil aviation visitor the first notable thing about theradio side of the S.B.A.C. Show this year was the industry's con- centration on radar in air-traffic control. The second obvious high-light was the spectacular advances which have been made in reducing the size and weight of airborne equipments, by the useof new techniques and the simultaneous promotion of greater reliability. One of the most impressive things on show to the aviation publicfor the first time this year was the Cossor secondary radar system. Cossor have been working steadily on this and are largely respon-sible for the design features of a system which is going to be of first importance in the years ahead. In the closest association withan American firm, the company has carried this piece of systems- development along in a way which has enabled it to achieve ahigh degree of international agreement without any clashes of the kind which have bedevilled so many other questions of facilitiesstandardization in the international arena. As a result there i& substantial agreement on both sides of the Atlantic about whata secondary radar system should look like and about the details of the airborne component. Most of the new Boeing 707s andDC-8s now coming along make provision for the transponder, and the next generation of British aeroplanes will do the same.The secondary radar antenna was shown mounted on the antenna of the CR.787, a new radar which Cossor have developedfrom the CR.21 for application where greater coverage is needed. The CR.787 is an S-band-cancelled radar, has a quarter-waveplate to deal with rain-clutter, and has been designed as a general- purpose radar for use in a wide range of A.T.C. applications. Anew display unit, the type CRD.23 was demonstrated in associa- tion with the CR.787. This display unit, in the modern trend,shows how associated equipment can be progressively built up to suit particular requirements for facilities such as video mapping,display of C.R.D.F. identification, superposition of various markers for tracking and transfer purposes by interscan techniquesand, of course, for display of returns from the transponders of the secondary radar system. Always in the forefront with the application to their airborneradio sets of new circuit techniques and devices, Standard Tele- phones and Cables exhibited some beautiful examples of the Both Standard Telephones and Cables and Elliott are showing packaged V.H.F., V.O.R. and I.L.S. equipment. Standard's is above, Elliott's below.
Sign up to
Flight Digital Magazine
Flight Print Magazine
Airline Business Magazine
E-newsletters
RSS
Events
