AEW Wellington….any ideas?

No I didn’t know that Ian, that’s worth sharing. I’m a great believer in original research, and obsurity (or not) is irrelevent IMHO.) Good luck with the publication endeavour. It would make a change from endless books about Mustands and Spitfires… 😉

Cheers!

James,

I would indeed agree that the reason the Wellington AWACS is never mention is that almost no-one knows about it, due almost certainly to the secrecy of the work of the wartime radar team.

As regards publication, watch this space. I’m currently in negotiations with the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland who MIGHT publish my history of the ground radar stations in Scotland. And before you dismiss this subject as irrelevant and that stations in Scotland didn’t really plot anything, you might be surprised just how much hostile activity there was and just how much important research was carried out in Scotland. Did you know that a few months before the start of the Battle of Britain, the German Air Force launched several attacks on the Home Fleet in Scapa Flow in an attempt to wipe it out, Pearl Harbour style?

My apologies if I’ve given the impression that I don’t like Watson-Watt; that’s not the case and I have a huge admiration for what he achieved. It’s just his book that, like most recollections of personal involvement, is not 100% accurate. Combine that with the fact that he liked to tell a good story and his particular ability to never use one word when a dozen would do, and the book is neither an invaluable primary source, nor particularly easy to read. I’m not dismissing it completely as a source – it is useful – but simply that if you want to understand accurately the history of radar, the only way to do that is to go to the contemporary primary sources, priincipally the official papers in The National Archives.

primary sources.

Papa Lima, I know you know better! A memour isn’t a primary source. Especially someone as involved as RWW with the lovely British politicians you yourself alluded to earlier. A document written at the time, or an original artifact is a primary source. A memour (essentially an excercise in how I did it – think of the song My Way 😀 ) maybe good, is always partial.

Ian – have you / are you publishing your research?

Cheers

“the only way to get at the truth is to go back to the primary sources.”
Sorry, Ian, despite your comments about “the father of radar” and apparent dislike of him, pompous as he was, I still count his book as a primary source since he was intimately involved in all the initial developments and spin-offs from radar. Having said that, I do not claim to be an expert on the history of radar and must bow to your superior knowledge ( and presumably much larger library).
I hope I am not appearing too pompous myself! Perhaps it comes with old age, but I still reckon that given a set of CPN-4 circuit diagrams I could explain its workings, the training I received at RAF Locking was so thorough! Of course the GCA radar known as CPN-4 was American!
I expect you know that the motto of the Radio Training School at RAF Locking was in fact “Thorough”!

Interesting thread folks.

To carry forward a minor and unimportant digression: PL, sure, true, but that’s excuses for failure in the big world. Frankly, while I agree 100% with your comments about the politicos, fact also remains that Britain couldn’t really afford to develop much after the war. It’s a bit like a gambler loing a few critical bets while short of cash – bad corner. (American failures could be got past by cash & need, each British failure – take the tragic case of the Comet – was cripling in the potential for future chances. And things like the Rotodyne and TSR-2 seem that they might have not been as great as we jhoped…) The Americans had the money, the attitude, the paranoia and went for it, be it rockets, angled landing deck or AWACs.

As regards the Wellington ‘AWAC’ – I suspect the reason it’s not mentioned Ian, as an antecedant, is that very few are aware of it. Would that be a fair comment? Did the British work get communicated to the Americans, or did they start seperately? It would have been classified at the time too.

Sorry, I’ve got a picture of a Wimpley with a giant geodesic smartie wobbling around on it’s tail… 😀 I must be tired!

Thanks for that, Nick. I’ve had a quick nose round and it seems to be an interesting forum, although I’d have to say there’s not enough images posted for my liking. 😉

No sooner said than done

http://www.modelhangar.com/forum/showthread.php?t=117&page=1&pp=10

-Nick

Thanks, that’s great, may I quote you on another forum? It’s a diecast model forum where someone was giving the highlights of Wimpy service, I added it had been trialed as AEW, now it seems we invented JSTARS too!

Nick, I was just thinking, may I ask out of curiosity what forum you are referring to? Could you post a link?

I also heard a rumour that the RN invented the microwave oven back in the mid 1940s, radar tecs noticed you could boil water (for tea obviously) if you left it near a ASV set that was radiating -Might be an urban legend though!

This is one than CAN be credited to the US. Percy Spencer came up with the idea of the microwave oven after a chocolate bar in his pocket melted when he was standing in front of a centimetric radar. I’ve also heard tales that the odd dead seabird used to be found lying in front of centimetric radars, having been cooked in flight. Now that’s what you call fast food!

There are many ways to describe Three Steps to Victory, but I’d never use comprehensive. There is an awful lot not included in that book, but that is only to be expected since it was written in 1957 and therefore much of what had happened during and before the war was still subject to the 30-year rule and thus secret. There’s also the fact that Watson-Watt was good at telling tales and you have to take a fair bit of the book with a pinch of salt. In fact, very little of the masses of books that have been written about radar are reliable and the only way to get at the truth is to go back to the primary sources. One of the few good books I’ve ever seen came out a couple of years ago, RDF1, by Michael Bragg. I strongly recommend it if you’re interested in the subject (and this isn’t an advert – I’m not on commission!)

Well ASV, H2S and the American produced H2X were all successful developments of centimetric radar.

My query was more about the many claims to fame for the Wimpy, one of which was that it was the first AEW aircraft and also the forerunner of JSTARS – I think I’ve presently surprised a chap on the diecast forum with the extra bit of information (care of Ian) which I guess is what this forum lark is all about. 😎

I also heard a rumour that the RN invented the microwave oven back in the mid 1940s, radar tecs noticed you could boil water (for tea obviously) if you left it near a ASV set that was radiating -Might be an urban legend though!

Papa Lima, we were clearing out a store cupboard at work the other day and I found a video of how to use TACAN featuring a Gnat from 4FTS – what a briliant pre-computer system!

Ian,
Have you been to Neatishead museum? The’ve got a S259 and all sorts of stuff.

Ian, I was surprised to see that Watson-Watt makes no mention of these Wellington trials in his otherwise comprehensive tome “Three steps to Victory”.
BTW I was a radar fitter for 17 years in the RAF and finished up writing the servicing manuals for a number of different ground radars and beacons such as TACAN and Eureka.

The ACI system worked on 1.5 metres, so the definition wasn’t as good as 10 cm (the beam was wider, so the blip was bigger, whereas the smaller blip on 10cm meant you could locate it much more accurately). With 10cm ASV (used in Bomber Command as H2S) a more effective equipment was available. By that time, there was also little need for an ACI system – lack of suitable targets. Does this make sense?

Just because it wasn’t used to any great extent doesn’t make it the first AWACS. It was the first such system, and was used, if only briefly. So yes, it was used operationally.

Nick – you can assume a service radar background if you want, but you’d be wrong! :rolleyes: My knowledge comes from researching from a local history viewpoint, and then realising that Hendon, the IWM, and other such places knew almost nothing about it, despite the crucial role that radar played. It’s quite a revelation to discover as a 16 year old that you know more than a national museum! The research took off from there and has reached a level where I was interviewed today by the BBC for a programme on radar next year. That should be a laugh!

James, post-war politicians gave away British technology left, right and centre, as well as destroying the aircraft industry, so I don’t think blame can be placed on British companies for not developing all those marvellous inventions, they were stifled at birth!

Sure, what I’m getting at is if one wants to claim the invention of something, you can’t build one then chuck it out before you’ve used it. That’s just messing about! 😀 You get the points for being first, but that’s it. The trick is to get it to work, and sell it (or have it adopted, as appropriate.) Every new idea has loads of anticedents which pop up (quite genuine sometimes) after the guy who got it firing on all cylinders has got it going, but so what? Great work for pedants and academincs like us, but the label on the can is the guy that makes the money – not the guy who didn’t finish the job. Yes, I’m being controversial. 😉

The 10 cm wavelength meant that the scanner could be small enough to fit inside an excrescence (lovely word!) under the fuselage, hence H2S, e.g. on Lancasters. Previous radars had much longer wavelengths which required much larger scanners.

Points for invention. Was it ever adopted? As you said the 10cm came online – what did that mean for the less technical of us? 😉

Thanks Ian – can I assume you have a service Radar background?

-nick

Sure you can quote me. The US always claim that they invented AWACS with the Cadillac system, but mention is never made of the ACI Wellington. If you want further details, let me know. I have all the references I cited and, time permitting, can quote more from them if necessary.