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Aviation History
1960
1960 - 0330.PDF
330 FLIGHT, 11 March i960 Missiles and Spaceflight. . . information is fed in from the aircraft. During free flight the BlueSteel is self-contained, and can be programmed to follow any flight-profile from about 100,000ft down to sea level at a cruisingspeed of about M1.6. A description of the weapon was contained in our Missilesreview number last November 6. AerodynamicaUy it is a canard, the aerodynamic surfaces consisting of a rear-mounted delta wingwith ailerons, a dorsal rudder, a ventral fin, and delta foreplanes to provide control in the pitching plane. The foreplanes are croppedat the Mach angle, and the wings have squared-off tips which droop downwards in order to clear the engine tailpipes when themissile is installed beneath the Victor. The ventral fin is arranged to fold horizontally (as shown in the photograph on the previouspage) owing to the Victor's small ground-clearance. Basic design, supplemented by a vast amount of system develop-ment, rig-testing and engineering refinement, were all conducted at the Division's facilities on the company airfield at Woodford,Cheshire. Flight trials began with two-fifths scale models (of the type displayed at the SBAC exhibition in 1958). Powered bytwin liquid rocket motors, these models were employed chiefly in the development of the missile's aerodynamics and autopilot.Most were dropped from early Valiants and Vulcans down the Aberporth range. Owing to the confines of Cardigan Bay manyhardly achieved cruising flight at all. In many cases the sole object of the trial was to investigate separation from the parent aircraftand the subsequent behaviour of the missile up to the point of light-up. Eventually full-scale test vehicles were employed for thesame purposes, until a clean break could be guaranteed. Initially the missile falls free; it is well below the bomber when the enginefires (see picture) and thereafter accelerates ahead before beginning its climb to the stratosphere. For over a year, advanced testing designed to explore all theairborne sub-systemshas been in hand at Woomera. Here there are no geographical limitations, and the inertial navigator can begiven its head over the full range of the missile. All these test vehicles have been powered by Double Spectre twin-barrel rocketengines by D. H. Engines. It is clear, however, that a different powerplant will be employed in the production missile. One couldconjecture that a derivative of the Bristol Siddeley Gamma might be chosen, but no official statement to this effect has yet beenmade. For many months a Services Trials Unit from RAF BomberCommand has been active at Woodford, operating several V-bombers to assist in the development of the weapon. We are notpermitted to state whether this unit has now moved to Woomera, but it is bound to do so in the course of time. Little was saidof Blue Steel in the recent Report an Defence, but in the Press conference following that document's publication it was revealedthat the missile will go into service "in the near future." When it does it will greatly increase the lethality of the latest Vulcans andVictors, and should prolong their active life by a number of years. As noted in the accompanying text, Bfue Steel test vehicles are now engaged in flight trials at the WRE range at Woom -a This sequence, taken from a Valiant, shr-ws release of the missile, the free drop end (looking vertically downwards) the light-up of the Double Spectre rocket engine. ?/ie weapon will then fly on ahead and climb MOON EXPLORATION SYMPOSIUM At a symposium held by the BritishInterplanetary Society at Caxton Hall, London, last Saturday a team of threespeakers described various aspects of the forthcoming exploration of theMoon. Patrick Moore set the scene, sayingthat apart from two widely separated incidents, there was no worthwhileevidence of any changes taking place on the Moon. For the purpose ofexploration it was dead and lifeless. Of most importance, perhaps, was therevelation that the latest radio-telescope measurements of the tenuous atmo-sphere surrounding the Moon indicated that it was considerably less dense thanhad been thought: probably the density was only 1/100,000 that of thesea-level atmosphere on the Earth. It was too thin to afford protection againstmeteorites, nor would it provide an ionosphere to permit radio communication beyond the satellite'shorizon. In the second paper Kenneth Gatland, vice-chairman of theSociety, covered the exploration by un-manned instrumented probes. The next step up the astronautical ladder would be thesoft landing of a probe on the Moon's surface. In function the probe would be similar to the remarkable Grasshopper weatherdevices which the United States parachuted into inaccessible areas. In these the impact of landing triggered an explosive chargeto detach the parachute. A second explosive charge then released six spring-loaded legs which automatically righted the device.A third charge extended a 20-foot transmitting aerial. The Grass- hopper then automatically transmitted weather data at predeter-mined intervals. Mr Gatland discussed various probes ranging from a simple spiked canister and solid-propellant retrorocketto a sophisticated Russian design-study for a tanker intended to traverse the surface of the Moon, scanning the scenery with atelevision camera and obtaining soil samples from a retractable ventral probe. Of particular interest was the speaker's own brainchild,MIGRANT—a design-study for a Moon Instrumented Guided Receiving and Notifying Transmitter. Proposed in 1958, itincorporated many features now being considered by NASA in their probe studies. The symposium was concluded by W. N. Neat, of thede Havilland Engine Co, who surveyed the ultimate manned exploration of our satellite. This, he explained, raised a majorproblem: once you put a man on the Moon you are faced with the task of getting him back. Mr Neat illustrated the fundamentaldifference between the return journey and the one-way trip involved in soft-landing a probe. Even assuming advanced con-structional techniques and the use of the best chemical fuels available, it seemed unlikely that the journey could be made witha take-off from and return to the surface of the Earth. Orbital refuelling seemed to provide the answer here. The French air ministry announced on March 5 that a Veroniquesounding vehicle, launched recently from Colomb-Bechar, reached a height of almost 200km (124 miles). At Atlas ICBM exploded on its pad while being fuelled at Vanden-berg AFB, Cal, on March 5. No injuries were caused and it seems doubtful that a warhead was installed. The last 17 Atlases to be launchedhave all flown successful missions. The first Saturn booster is now being assembled on the rebuilt andstrengthened static-test tower at Redstone Arsenal preparatory to firing tests. The tankage sections, 80ft long and 22ft in diameter, were hoistedinto place on March 2. Congressman Charles Porter, of Oregon, asserts that, when he visitedRAF Feltwell (see pages 339-342) last June, an RAF officer produced both keys needed to unlock the control mechanisms and enable acountdown to proceed. He claims that the Defence Department censored his story at that time, and rejects all explanations so far offered to him
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