Vickers Wellington AEW.

Coincidentally I’ve just finished re-reading “Night Fighter” (by Rawnsley and Wright), where the use of airborne radar to counter the threat of He 111 launched V1’s is briefly mentioned.

One comment made in the book is that the controllers found life difficult when the Wellington carrying the radar had to change course mid-interception – they had to re-calculate all the course headings and instructions they gave their fighters to allow for the Wellingtons new compass bearing. Presumably in those pre-computerisation days there was no way of “fixing” the PPI (plan position indicator) display such that it was independent of the heading of the radar carrier. Thus if the Wellington changed course by 180 degrees the PPI display would swing through 180 degrees too, thus reversing all the relative bearings on the display screen.

For anyone unfamiliar with the book, “Jimmy” Rawnsley was one of the pioneer RAF AI-operators who learnt the trade as the whoel area of AI-nightfighting was developed, he crewed with John Cunningham for two tours, one on Blenheims/Beaufighters, and then a second tour on Mosquitoes. Highly recommended.

Paul F
Paul F

fantastic book must have one of the first that i read as a kid..

Gunners Moon by John Busby is another good read and gives a great insight on life as a ground crew and subsequently as a gunner .

The AEW Wellington gets a mention in the recently published book ‘Air Launched Doodlebugs – The Forgotten campaign.’ by Peter Smith.
Anyone who has Mr Smith’s earlier publication ‘Flying Bombs over the Pennines’ will recognise the subject, only now the attacks on Southampton and London are covered.

Airborne AI

Coincidentally I’ve just finished re-reading “Night Fighter” (by Rawnsley and Wright), where the use of airborne radar to counter the threat of He 111 launched V1’s is briefly mentioned.

One comment made in the book is that the controllers found life difficult when the Wellington carrying the radar had to change course mid-interception – they had to re-calculate all the course headings and instructions they gave their fighters to allow for the Wellingtons new compass bearing. Presumably in those pre-computerisation days there was no way of “fixing” the PPI (plan position indicator) display such that it was independent of the heading of the radar carrier. Thus if the Wellington changed course by 180 degrees the PPI display would swing through 180 degrees too, thus reversing all the relative bearings on the display screen.

For anyone unfamiliar with the book, “Jimmy” Rawnsley was one of the pioneer RAF AI-operators who learnt the trade as the whoel area of AI-nightfighting was developed, he crewed with John Cunningham for two tours, one on Blenheims/Beaufighters, and then a second tour on Mosquitoes. Highly recommended.

Paul F
Paul F

Wellington AWAC pilot

Hello all
My dad, Mac McLean, skippered one of those Wellington radar planes. My mother remembered she thought he had his own air force since he seemed to have so much time off. A man named Harris or Hamilton I think contacted my sister some years ago and said he was my dads radio operator and was writing a book about it. I haven’t heard anything since but I’ll see what i can find out. I think she has a picture of the whole crew if I remember correctly

I have both the original Flypast article, and also additional information. I’m on my lunch at work right now, but I can dig it out this evening. Sadly, I don’t have a scanner, but I can photocopy the article and snail mail it to you. If this would be useful, send me your address as a personal message and I’ll get it off to you.

As a small PS, IIRC the unit which operated this experimental Wellington was the Fighter Interception Unit, which is fairly well known. The radar equipment was developed at the Telecommunications Research Establishment, based at Malvern.