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Aviation History
1960
1960 - 2365.PDF
FLIGHT, 21 October 1960 635 Left, first illustration of the appearance of the BMEWS site at Fylingdales Moor, Yorkshire. Three tracking radars will be used, two of which will operate as detection radars and one as a detection back-up tracker. The domestic site is separate from the radomes, which are to be coloured light blue. Right, artisfs impression of the combat operations centre of North American Air Defense Command at Colorado Springs, where BMEWS information is displayed. Launch-site position estimates would be shown on the left-hand chart, and predicted targets on the right ^ the radar subsystems are monitored continuously to verify theircorrect operation. Using punched cards and magnetic tape on which targets are simulated, any part of the system—or the entiresystem—can be checked out automatically, either from Colorado Springs or from the forward site concerned. At the NORAD Combat Operations Center, Colorado Springs,data from the forward sites are decoded, evaluated, modified if necessary by other intelligence, and displayed (see diagram athead of page). A Display Information Processor assesses the "threat level" and the degree of confidence in the incoming infor-mation. The final decision as to whether this information repre- sents an actual attack is then made by the NORAD commander,Gen L. S. Kuter. At the RCA plant at Moorestown a full-scale prototype of thetracking radar is currently under test. Another prototype is undergoing mechanical life testing at the Goodyear Aircraft hangarin Acron, Ohio. The latter unit has been scanning continuously for over seven months without any. failure. This type of equipmentis in fact designed to operate continuously for ten years without major overhaul.In the installation of the RCA equipment at the Fylingdales site, RCA Great Britain Ltd is providing support services to the primecontractor. Technical training courses are under way at the British company's factory at Sunbury-on-Thames, and a number of thefirm's employees are now training at Moorestown. The overall BMEWS philosophy, we were told at Moorestown,was to detect any mass raid and to protect the bases from which retaliatory forces would strike back—and not to protect any par-ticular country. This meant that the philosophy was based on deterence and on alliance, with warning time for individual coun-tries (such as the minimum of four minutes for the United Kingdom) provided as an additional bonus. The flexibility with which the RCA radars could be operatedwas emphasized—although at Fylingdales the normal procedure would involve two as detectors and one as a scanner, it was possibleto employ all three on either function as required. On the subject of co-ordinated RAF and NORAD planning, a joint operationaldoctrine was now being written. Fylingdales would be under RAF command, with a combined team of USAF and RAF officerson the base to ensure that the joint doctrine was carried out. Because of the extremely high intensity of the radar beams, asafety committee had established safety zones and radiation levels as the basis of a set of rules for site personnel. Margins allowedwere conservative, and at Fylingdales the fenced distance in front of the radars would be 7,000ft. The three main building sites at theYorkshire site were now being prepared, a main access road was being constructed and foundations were being worked on. To be told about the radar equipment was one thine: to climbinside the huge white radome of the Moorestown tracker and see for ourselves was quite another. Above us towered the 84ft dia-meter parabolic reflector dish, scanning from side to side (but not transmitting, for obvious reasons) in an awesome combination ofsheer mass and smooth motion. The reflector comprised a com- plex steel frame on which was stretched a wire mesh; four beamsconverged to carry the feed horn unit at the focus of the parabola. One of the less-technical members of the party summed it up as strict mad-scientist stuff." - , '_-.--. BMEWS Site 7 of Thule, Greenland, became operational on the first of this month. It has four fixed detection radars, three of which are shown here, and provision for additional tracking radars. The 400ft X 165ft reflectors formed part of General Electric's responsibility as subsystem subcontractor to RCA A fantastic impression of size and space was given by thepale radome sphere inside which we were standing, the honey- comb pattern of its constituent panels standing out in outline aspinhole dots of light. The sphere is made up of twelve large sections, each section comprising a large number of hexagonaland pentagonal panels. The total number of panels in the radome is 1,646, and they are constructed of a glass-fibre/paper honey-comb/glass-fibre sandwich and bolted together. The external white paint is transparent to radio waves, and we were given anadvance decoration tip on Fylingdales—Britain has chosen light blue for her radomes. Inside the 38ft high base building (built on separate foundationsfrom those carrying the tower on which the radar pedestal and dish are mounted) we visited the missile impact computer systemwhich processes the data acquired by the radar. This represents in function but not in exact type of equipment the computerinstallation planned for Fylingdales. On one printer unit the fol- lowing columns were being typed out: time, azimuth, elevation,range, and co-ordinates x, y and z. A little later along the line, we realized, this sort of informationwould pass through the display information processor at NORAD headquarters in Colorado Springs and would be reflected in theline of columns in Gen Kuter's illuminated summary panel on the wall. On this display the titles were UK alarm level, raid estimate,predicted impacts, minutes to go (to first impact), and alarm level. * * * Moorestown was the final point of call on the official programmeof our 3^-week visit, which had been sponsored by the US Defense Department, State Department and Information Agency. Theunenviable job of escorting a mixed bag of 17 journalists through an extremely tight schedule had been handled competently byMaj Bob Spence of Third Air Force, South Ruislip, and Mr Richard France from Air Force Headquarters at the Pentagon.But our particular thanks went to Maj Paul Donohoe and Capt Allen Wetmore, commander and co-pilot of our Convair C-131,for their smooth flying over some 7,500 miles of the USA.
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