FlightGlobal.com
Home
Premium
Archive
Video
Images
Forum
Atlas
Blogs
Jobs
Shop
RSS
Email Newsletters
You are in:
Home
Aviation History
1964
1964 - 0576.PDF
International, 27 February 1964 339 INDUSTRY International Flight Systems Products Company News Great DM tain More TSR.2 Equipment Details Further information has been released concerning the equipment to be fitted in the TSR.2, EMI Electronics now report that their sideways-looking radar employs a long, flat, fixed aerial in the side of the aircraft, allowing narrow beam and high definition. On a small display tube, the time-base trace is kept stationary and a film is moved past the tube-face at a speed corresponding to the groundspeed of the aircraft. The film thus forms a continuous strip record of the ground over which the aircraft has flown. The mapping picture can reveal, through darkness or cloud, geographical features such as rivers, lakes and hills, and man-made features such as roads, canals and buildings. The height of structures can be assessed from the radar "shadow" extending beyond them. The films can be rapidly processed on return to base and detailed information extracted by skilled interpreters within a few minutes. Line Scan, the other EMI Electronics reconnaissance system, is an optical scan- ning system which may be either active or passive. Passively, the electronic eye scans without illumination, the output being recorded in the aircraft and transmitted back to base if required. Actively, a spot of light is swept across the ground at the same rate as the scanning system, giving results as good by night as by day, with little chance of detection. All this equipment is to be fitted in the TSR.2 in the form of an easily removable pack. Decca Radar have developed for British Aircraft Corporation a highly accurate Doppler radar to be fitted in the TSR.2 and capable of measuring drift and groundspeed Ferranti Type 100 stable platform, the first airborne inertial- quality platform deve- loped in Britain, being tested at Ferranti's Rracknell factory. Pro- duction is now under way at their Moston, Manchester, factory throughout that aircraft's flight envelope. Outputs are available in either digital or analogue form, facilitating integration with inertial and other aircraft systems. Maxi- mum reliability and a high degree of fail- safe have been incorporated. Hawker Siddeley Dynamics have been authorized to proceed with the design of a development of their Tape-controlled Re- cording Automatic Checkout Equipment (TRACE) for the TSR.2, such a system being necessary to ensure rapid operational readiness of the aircraft and its complex systems. The TRACE unit will be mounted in a dust- and water-proof trolley stressed for high-speed towing over rough ground, so that the equipment will match the air- craft's ability to operate from rough strips and under climatic extremes. TRACE has already been supplied to the British and French governments and is on order for the Royal Navy and for BOAC. Royston Midas MIR-7 missile recorder re- cently fired in a Sky- lark 50 miles down- range from Woomera, to a height of 104 miles, and recovered in working order after landing on rocky ground without re- covery aids (this page last week). The unit, which holds 500ft of tape, can be adapted for accident recording work Air Defence Radar The MoA has ordered for the RAF four Sperry AN/TPS-34 air defence radar systems, 21 of which are being supplied to the US Marine Corps. Each installation can be air-transported in pack- ages weighing less than 4001b and set up on site in eight days. British Sperry will pro- vide post-design services from their Stone- house, Glos, establishment. TPS-34 employs V-beam radar principles for deriving range, azimuth and height from the same pair of radar beams, and it pro- jects these for the first time from a single aerial, housed under an eight-section, inflatable 50ft radome. V-beam involves projection of two separate "sheets" forming a 45° angle with the intersection parallel with the ground. The interval between passage of successive "sheets" through a target will be proportional to the target's elevation. Sperry provide digital height read-out and can also provide digital read- out of all three parameters if required. The same aerial can be used by means of polar- ization-sensitive gratings formed by flat metallic strips mounted on the same plastic honeycomb structure. The "sheets" are electrically separated by the polarization. The transport containers are proofed against shock, vibration, water and climate, and the eight inflatable radome sections can form a derrick for aerial erection. Several of them can also be damaged or removed without collapsing the structure. BEA Transponders BEA have ordered more than 100 Cossor type 1600 trans- ponders for fitting in their aircraft, including the Trident. The type 1600 has already been ordered by BOAC and other authorities and meets Arinc characteristic 532D.
Sign up to
Flight Digital Magazine
Flight Print Magazine
Airline Business Magazine
E-newsletters
RSS
Events
