Canberra PR.9: why put him in the nose?

Mainly announced as to extend the recce ability beyond the max operating height of the Valiant but as usual there were other political, economic and operational drivers at work also.

There were other parallel roles for Valiant/Canberra eg ECM and Signal Intel so it seems that one role /one airframe was not an economic limit for the airships of the day.

Hindsight shows the logic paid off with other operational assets being in place to take up tasking when a type failed in a role or change of operating conditions.

Canberra had been a very lucrative airframe for English Electric (some airframes going on being sold at least three times to different air forces in their life) and the BI(8) being was well looked on for it’s RAF service (prior to 1959 when design study P28 was produced by Warton). This meant that the internal development costs of the B(I)8 for a more powerful low level interdictor airframe could be viewed with potential upgrade sales to the RAF and other air forces.

P28 looked to improve the BI(8) penetration speed, range at low level and low level stability for fatigue improvement both of pilot and airframe. All features that would come to favour the PR.9 remaining as the recce platform when the V force changed from high level to low level.

The airframe produced had power operated controls to give quick, accurate control response and the combination of wing loading/ ratio of tare to all up loading/engine power all resulted in an airframe that was stated in the glossy catalogue as 50,000ft + but in reality was 60,000ft+.

This fitted the need for an additional high level strategic recce airframe for the RAF and was offered with a lower development cost burden than the other crescent/delta airframes being considered.

For the politicians the use of Shorts in Belfast to produce the licence built examples was an attractive hook and EE would not have to divert mainland factory production space from production of other types.

I think that Wyton was used as the into service location due to the presence of the photo “moles” ground staff to process the film rather than role supplement of Valiant.

The PR.9 was quite quickly moved from the UK to Malta with war bases intended in Turkey giving a strategic operating role divorced from the remaining Valiant PR fleet.

The initial operating height of 60,000+ was achieved by crew partial pressure suits/helmets and uprated oxygen regs. When Typhoon was initially being trialled in service at these heights Safety Section at Marham re-lifed a few of the 1960s high altitude kit for development use before the bespoke airframe specific kit had arrived.

Regards
Ross

Very interesting! Which of course started me thinking… why was the PR.9 developed?

The Valiant B(PR).1 and the PR.9 overlapped in service up until 1965, the former looks on paper to have been a more capable recce asset ( vertical, oblique and radar ).

So, what raised the requirement for the PR.9? Economy? Lack of Valiant airframes? The PR.9s were originally to be based at Wyton which suggests they were to supplement the Valiants.

Merci!

No plotting radar fitted in the 9 from into service date to the out of service date. Only Doppler drift and then retrofit of rear warning radar in the 80s.

Plotting table was flimsy fold up affair similar to airline tray backs. Used when undertaking survey work in conjunction with optical periscope to visually check drift and track against chart.

When brought into service main navigation equipment was Green Satin and Ground Position Indicator http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Satin_radar.

This gave a readout of estimated position as Lat/Long or Grid and indication of drift. Needed manual transfer to chart for visualization of position, track and surroundings. Radio Alt was fitted for height.

The next fit lasted until the out of service date was TANS (Tactical Air Navigation System) which replaced the two Green Satin/GPIV units with one box and added an inertial gyro system. Again this was text readout only with no moving map display or position visualisation.

There was no missile threat warning/countermeasures fitted until RWR in the 80s and chaff dispensers not installed until the Drug Overlords took exception to the Afgan poppy crop overflights. Shades of Gary Powers (fly high – no sam threat).

There was one early attempt to use the flare pistol fitted above the nav left shoulder to fire a packed charge of chaff but it was quickly suspended when the first shots just sent a compact ball of chaff into the intake of the port engine.

Nav was old school pencil in the ear and charts stuffed into the pockets for the duration of the service life + two life extensions.

One of the reasons I suspect that FatNav commented on how better it was to have photo gear and nav gear around in the same place rather than leave nav table to go to photo position.

In terms of extra eyes for visual threat look out.

The broad wing gave all canberras blind spot that the pilot (and a tandem nav) could not see below and behind. This was the favoured spot for interception. In the case of the 9 the nav used the periscope to give clear vision into these areas and easily spotted creeping Phantom and Tornado interlopers during Air Defence exercises.

Regards
Ross

Don’t know.

Possibly because the B-59 was a cancelled Boeing development project and the Martin B-57B was the tandem canopy derivative of the Canberra B2 that Martin was licenced to build.

More probably the thinking was set by the lessons of the BI(8) arrangement and to re jig the offset pilot position control runs would be excessive work to centralise the crew positions. Also as fatnav says the nose position allowed wrap round panels at elbow height, plotting table at waist height, periscope display infront and Green Satin/GPIV (later TANS, RWR display etc) all ranged three or four units high in front. All without the limitations of truncation for a narrow canopy width.

Ross

Interesting! But I do wonder why a plotting table was required when they had radar. One advantage of the USAF arrangement of the crew was that another pair of eyes were available to look outside when the aircraft was threatened.

Regards

Hi All,
Nice story’s Ross_McNeill very funny, I must ask though why did they not adopt the tandem canopy as the yanks had on their B-57 version of our Canberra or was this simply because they never used it as a reconnaissance platform like the RAF did amongst it many roles ?

Geoff.

My underlining.

The RB-57A (Martin Model 272A) was a reconnaissance version of the B-57A bomber. Cameras installed aft of the bomb bay constituted the main difference between the RB-57A and the B-57A. The cameras (P-2s, K-17s, K-37s, K-38s, or T-17s) could be interchanged according to the aircraft’s mission. The intended mission included day and night, high and low, and visual and photographic reconnaissance. Unlike the B-57A, the RB-57A was totally unarmed. It was painted with a high gloss black paint which was intended to minimize detection by searchlights. The crew was two–one pilot and one photo-navigator. It was intended that only a minimum of effort would be required to convert the RB-57A to a bomber mission–which was never actually done in practice. The last of 67 RB-57As was accepted by the USAF in September of 1954.

The RB-57D was a high-altitude reconnaissance version of the Martin-built Canberra. The RB-57D featured a substantially-altered B-57B fuselage. The fuselage bomb bay was permanently closed off and the fuselage fuel tanks were removed. Four camera windows were installed ahead of the nose wheel well. A large nose and tail radome further lengthened the fuselage. A power-driven rudder and yaw damper were installed. A new 105-foot wing was fitted, which carried all of the internal fuel in the aircraft. The fuel cells were integral with the wing, which was of honeycomb construction–the first time that such a structural feature had been used in a piloted aircraft. Wing spoilers augmented the stubby ailerons. Wing flaps and speed boards were eliminated as a weight saving measure. The J65 engines were replaced by a pair of 10,000 lb.s.t. Pratt & Whitney J57-P-9 turbojets housed in enlarged nacelles and equipped with anti-icing equipment. It was anticipated that the aircraft would be able to operate at altitudes in excess of 70,000 feet. The first RB-57D flew on November 3, 1955. A total of 20 were built.

The RB-57F was the result of a early-1960s program to produce a virtually new high-altitude reconnaissance aircraft out of the B-57. The wing of the RB-57F was an entirely new, three-spar structure with a span of 122 feet. Extensive use was made of honeycomb sandwich panels, which had originally been developed by Convair for the B-58 Hustler supersonic bomber. All of the fuel was carried inside the wings outboard of the engines. The large wing had a marked anhedral, and had a set of ailerons inset at mid-span that were supplemented by spoilers. All control surfaces had tightly sealed gaps in order to reduce drag, and there were no wing flaps. The aircraft was fitted with larger vertical tail surfaces. These surfaces were twice as large as those of the standard B-57.
The RB-57F was powered by a pair of 18,000 lb.s.t. Pratt & Whitney TF33-P-11A turbofans, which gave the RB-57F more than twice the power of its predecessors. In addition, provision was made for a 3300 lb.s.t. Pratt & Whitney J60-P-9 turbojet housed in a detachable pod underneath each wing. These auxiliary engines did not have starters, and were air-started after takeoff after windmilling up to 12 percent rpm. They remained at idling RPM up to 32,000 feet altitude, where throttling control started becoming effective. Full throttle could be used at altitudes above 40,000 feet. The J60s added approximately 2500 feet to the maximum ceiling. However, the J60s could be removed for maximum range missions.
There were four underwing hardpoints, all of which could be used to carry external stores when the turbojets were mot mounted. The RB-57F could carry a two-ton HTAC high-altitude reconnaissance camera. Special ELINT/SIGINT equipment could be carried in the modified nose and in the plastic wingtip sections.
Following the completion of the first two aircraft, the USAF awarded a contract to General Dynamics for the construction of 19 more RB-57Fs. Most of them were converted from B-57B airframes that were still on active duty, but four were converted from RB-57Ds that were taken out of storage, and three were converted from RB-57A aircraft by using spare B-57B nose sections. Production was completed in March of 1967.

Hi All,
Ross,
Yes thank you spotting the obvious mistake :highly_amused: What a pillock I am. Thanks for the explanation makes more sense now.

Geoff.

Don’t know.

Possibly because the B-59 was a cancelled Boeing development project and the Martin B-57B was the tandem canopy derivative of the Canberra B2 that Martin was licenced to build.

More probably the thinking was set by the lessons of the BI(8) arrangement and to re jig the offset pilot position control runs would be excessive work to centralise the crew positions. Also as fatnav says the nose position allowed wrap round panels at elbow height, plotting table at waist height, periscope display infront and Green Satin/GPIV (later TANS, RWR display etc) all ranged three or four units high in front. All without the limitations of truncation for a narrow canopy width.

Ross

Hi All,
Nice story’s Ross_McNeill very funny, I must ask though why did they not adopt the tandem canopy as the yanks had on their B-57 version of our Canberra or was this simply because they never used it as a reconnaissance platform like the RAF did amongst it many roles ?

Geoff.

I was lucky enough to do my first tour on the PR.9 and preferred the position in the 9 to other marks of Canberra, and I have time on eight marks. Yes visibility was more restricted than lying in the nose of the PR.7, for example, but it was very useable. For survey work the downward looking Recce sight was superb. The ability to accurately measure drift was very useful, particularly if the Doppler unlocked. The feeling of having all of the nav kit available at all times was extremely helpful and you had the confidence of always being strapped in to Martin Baker. All in all an excellent solution.

Basically yes but relocation came with advantages in use.

Pig of a job but the nav could change the film cartridges in the oblique cameras during flight.

Allowed swap during mission to colour/black and white/Infra red images that could not be done with remote camera bays.

When bored on the long transits the pilot could unseat, squirm down into the space below his fuel panel (where the access door on other mks was) and reach through equipment to tap nav on shoulder and give him fright of life at 30,000 ft.

Revenge was swift as nav could then reach back and tie pilot boot laces together giving ground crew smile when he tried to get out.

Other story was when mess was closed at Malta – nose infront of nav feet was stacked with champers bottles for return…..nav said nasty moment when strapped in and bottles start popping corks at your head!.

Ross

Thanks Ross. So basically nowhere to put the poor blighter but right up front, once all that equiment had been shoved in to his previous abode?

The best view was reserved for the cameras.

The pilot came next to return the cameras safely to the ground.

The nav was supposed to know where he and the aircraft was so no need for external view other than the downward periscope (looked fwd and aft in an arc as well).

For the 9 the area behind the pilot was taken up with the electrical equipment bay, canopy pivot and pressurisation equipment. Moving further aft, the fwd camera bay (full height compartment) and then fwd fuselage fuel tank over the flare bay for the thirsty souped up avons.

Regards
Ross