blue streak test facility

Just found this while searching for something else about Woomera.
Not that surprising I suppose, but interesting all the same!
Article here:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/06/04/2265252.htm

Pete

Bruggen 130

Have a look at this website

http://www.woomera.com.au/range/defence.htm

Plus there is more that is not publicly released.

Paul

hello there
the Canberra at woomera is part of the Woomera Heritage Centre,its a Vietnam survivor A 84 241, they also have a Meteor and a Black Arrow rocket, incidentally Woomera is now a detention center for illegal immigrants. maybe the aussies have the right approach, stick em all in a rocket eh:cool: 😎 😎

I was talking to a couple of guys from Warton a few weeks back and they said that they were off to Woomera to test “”Quote”” some UAVs. Anybody
on here know whats happening there these days:D I know it’s a bit off topic
but I thought i’d ask.
Phil.

On 25/7/54 USSR demanded with menaces that new FRG should not be in NATO. Churchill’s Cabinet 26/7 enhanced UK in the dreadful arbitrament of Deterrence, initiating (to be) Yellow Sun Mk.1 UK H-Bomb and their Mk.2 V-Craft, their Avro 730 supersonic successor, Blue Streak and its Orange Herald warhead…and decided to vacate Suez. Busy day. The IRBM would benefit from US licences negotiated by MoS Duncan Sandys 12/6-30/7/54, notably for RR and Rocketdyne’s motor.
During 1955 DH Props was appointed vehicle Contractor, US initiated (to be) Atlas, Thor, Jupiter, in April,1956 solid-fuel Polaris. On 25/3/57 MoD Sandys negotiated Bermuda US/UK Defence Collaboration Ag., UK in US targeting Committees from 10/57, Thor to be UK-, Jupiter to be Italy/Turkey-based. He extracted more technology licences to accelerate Blue Streak and to replace the heavy UK warhead with Mk.28 as Red Snow (also for Yellow Sun Mk.2).

By late-59 a “UK” clone of a US IRBM was in the too hard/why bother? tray. DH was seen as slow; other issues were those noted by PC; motorway-building consuming UK’s cement-making capacity, delaying silos; geology East of the Pennines, unsuitable for 60 holes; and grotesque expense, even net of $-contribution. So: joint funding/manning/ targeting of Thor; Skybolt ALBM on Vulcan; an “understanding” for RN SLBM/SSBN. Deletion 13/4/60 (cost: £84Mn); unclear that HSAL knew when they bought DH 17/12/59.
(Added, 16/3: ) US in 1956 agreed to fund 15% of guesstimated £70Mn. R&D; actually paid out $8Mn to mid-58, I.Clark,Nuclear Diplomacy&the Special Relationship,OUP,94,P163. Blue Streak was about as “British” as the “Independent” Nuclear Deterrent was after 1957.

Try this link for a sat image of launcher 6A, the uncompleted launcher 6B is also visible (follow the zig zag trenches to the SE) as well as the preliminary earthworks for the underground launcher 6C.

http://maps.google.com.au/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=woomera+sa&sll=-31.07386,136.43966&sspn=0.004356,0.00706&ie=UTF8&ll=-31.073833,136.439638&spn=0.004356,0.00706&t=h&z=17

In the book “Fire across the desert” mentioned above it states that apart from the massive financial burden of continuing with Blue Streak the project was doomed because of the liquid fuel propellant used, it was estimated that 5 to 6 minutes would be needed to fuel the rocket and stabilise its gyros yet only 4 minutes warning could be obtained of Russian missile launches leaving the British missile silos vulnerable to a first strike. This is why the US developed Minuteman which could be launched in under 60 seconds.

Paul

I haven’t read all the replies to this post so appologise if this has already ben mentioned.

There is the remains of a Blue Streak test facilitie at Boscombe Down. It is little more than a steel gantry and haredned concrete hut but was apparently used for trials on the rockets directional controls. The site is protected from re-development.

I may of course have got this totaly wrong but I’m pretty sure that’s right.

It also has the footage of the remote control Canberra that stalled and crashed in front of the gathered press one day. I should still have a copy on VHS in the cupboard…

This one you mean?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=naQy1jUx-88

Rocket Bases

There is a rocket base in suffolk somewhere, in the nineties I went there to
get some slab perspex as the chambers were being used as industrial units.
I think they were used for testing Thor rockets I was told.
Cant for the life of me remember where it was though!:confused:

Graham

One day, in,I think 1963, I was walking on Hadrian’s Wall at Steel Rigg.It was a very damp and windy day, so I ate my lunch in a sheltered spot behind the wall.
Suddenly there was a terrific noise which I could feel through the ground as well as hear and, at first, being of a geological turn of mind at the time, I thought “My God, the Whin Sill’s active again!” (The Whin Sill being the ancient lava sheet on which the wall is built at that point). Then common sense prevailed as I realised it was Blue Streak’s motor being tested at Spadeadam!
I stood up and could see a plume of steam coming from one of the support platforms there. Great stuff!!
Jim

There is an excellent book all about Woomera called “Fire Across the Desert” by Peter Morton. Well worth a read, very detailed, many photos etc..

Also, there was a documentary about Blue Streak and Blue Steel shown on the ABC back in the 1980’s, including air launches of the rockets and a great piece of footage as the rocket drops behind and then overtakes the Vulcan that dropped it.

It also has the footage of the remote control Canberra that stalled and crashed in front of the gathered press one day. I should still have a copy on VHS in the cupboard…

Geoff

I visited Spadeadam in the late 1960s to watch a Blue Streak static firing. I can’t remember what the official pretext for my visit was, but it was quite an experience.

It was not RAF Spadeadam in those days, but was known by some title such as Rocket Research Establishment, Spadeadam. I can’t remember the exact phrase.

From the main administrative and rocket-preparation area the road continued to a junction that led to two areas – Grey Mare’s Tail and Prior Lancey. One (GMT, I think) was home to the Engine Test Area (ETA) run by Rolls Royce; the other was the Rocket Test Area (RTA) run by Hawker Siddeley Dynamics.

There were two sites at RTA – C2 and C3. Both were similar to the 6A launch site at Woomera, but only C3 was in use. There was a tower and launch pad at C2, but quietly rusting away. A single hardened control room located several hundred metres away had two control rooms – one facing C3 and other facing C2, but only the former was fitted out with checkout consoles.

These consoles were used to remotely control racks of missile checkout electronics located in a chamber build deep within the concrete structure that supported the launch pad.

The control room was equipped with two submarine-type periscopes, but as a mere visitor I didn’t get anywhere near those during the final countdown. Instead, I watched from one of the huge periscopic windows that faced the pad. (I had to share it with one of the senior Hawker Siddeley design engineers plus several other visitors.)

By the time the count reached zero, it was almost dark, so the sight of the motor plume was spectacular.

That evening I ended up in a pub in a nearby village where the test crew were celebrating the success. As each round of drinks was procured, fresh brim-full pints were added to several rows of fully-fuelled beer glasses already in position on another part of the bar. Those were waiting for the last team members to arrive – the crew responsible for moving the tower back around the rocket and making all safe. They finally arrived much later in the evening (presumably they had been busy draining the rocket of unburned propellants) and set to work on their waiting beers.

Old Mercurius has no recollection of how it all ended and where he eventually found a bed for the night.

BTW, the reason that Creaking Door can’t find the Blue Streak site at Woomera is because it’s not at Woomera itself but at Lake Hart. The site was not fully identical to C3 – the UK pad had a water-cooled steel blast deflector, but 6A’s deflector was brick lined. Also the control room at 6A was not hardened, but a long way from the pad.

And those German accents at Woomera in the 1960s were probably the German team who were responsible for the third stage of the ill-fated ELDO A satellite launch vehicle.

woomera

My Uncle was a engineer based in woomera during the missile tests. He had emigrated to Australia in the 1950s and used to come visit us in Scotland during the 60s-70s (which in those days cost a lot) he used to tell my mother that one of the biggest things he noticed was the amount of German accents around the missile base the implication being that these were the german scientists who surrendered to the British during WW2

Even though this is an old thread I thought someone may be interested in these photos of the Blue Streak / ELDO launcher as it is now, in one of them I am standing inside the exhaust well for a size comparison.
Paul

Had another (all too brief) chat today with that friend of mine who used to test the Blue Streak RZ2 engines at Spadeadam.

One thing I hadn’t realised is that the testing was being done on engines that were intended for the launch vehicles. I’d assumed, quite wrongly, that the RZ2 engines were a ‘one-shot’ deal and that once used they would require an extensive rebuild. Not so.

It seems that the purpose of most of the tests (on single engines) was ‘trimming’ the individual engines. This consisted of measuring the thrust and then bringing that thrust within the design limits. The method for doing this was by placing an ‘orifice’ of an appropriate size between the turbo-fuel-pump and the thrust-chamber to ‘throttle’ the engine!

Also apparently all tests were of three minutes duration; the maximum duration of the engine burn between launch and fuel exhaustion.

I saw the last two Blue Streaks being built at Stevenage in the early 1970’s when I was a Kid (my late grandfather worked in the Blue Streak contract support side of the project at HSD (Later the BAe Dynamics B site). I later worked at Spadeadam on the EWTR during 99/00 and worked on one of the threat systems (AN/MST-T1A MUTES, phased out in 99) that was located on Greymare Hill above the test stand at Greymare West (the other main test stands were are Greymare East and Prior Lancy).

I remember bumping into that chap, possibly at a BAPC meeting and I made a copy of the RZ2 manual for him. They were most of the engine but without thrust chambers.

Pity about the thrust chambers; another reason I didn’t bid.

They are also quite complex considering how simple they are in theory.

Yes, simple, in theory. 🙂

Somebody once told me the turbo-fuel-pump on a RZ2 would go from 0 to 20,000 RPM in less than a second! 😮

In 2003 two Blue Streak engines were sold on eBay.

They were photographed lying in undergrowth round the back of somebody’s shed but seemed in pretty good condition…being made of stainless steel I presume?

I think they only went for about £400 each! 😮

I wish I’d bid now but couldn’t think how to move them.

I remember bumping into that chap, possibly at a BAPC meeting and I made a copy of the RZ2 manual for him. They were most of the engine but without thrust chambers.
There is a lot of stainless in the engine, but also a lot of mild steel which was not plated, so they do suffer quite a lot of corrosion.
They are also quite complex considering how simple they are in theory.

Pete

In 2003 two Blue Streak engines were sold on eBay.

They were photographed lying in undergrowth round the back of somebody’s shed but seemed in pretty good condition…being made of stainless steel I presume?

I think they only went for about £400 each! 😮

I wish I’d bid now but couldn’t think how to move them.

Solway Aviation Museum at Carlisle have a Blue Streak exhibition which includes the engine bay section of the vehicle and engines.
They also have a large number of artefacts and a sizeable library of original material, mainly photographs and manuals.

The large blue streak section at Spadeadam was still there a couple of years ago.

Pete

Vega ECM, you know what you are talking about for sure!
What is the significance in the ‘Black’ and ‘Blue’ forenames?
Im thinking ‘Blue’ was for military application?