Watson-Watt, in his autobiography, Three Steps to Victory, credits the idea of Window to Professor Lindemann who gave the idea to Churchill to present to the Air Defence Research Committee in 1937. The idea was largely dismissed and no investigation of Window was carried out until 1942.

I was surprised by this, which seems to be the first good idea that Lindemann came up with. He dismissed radar in the early days, preferring aerial minefields, and also stated that long-range rockets (ie the V2) were impossible because they could only use solid fuel and would therefore need so much fuel as to be too heavy to get off the ground! :rolleyes:

I’ve never actually seen dates for when Germany began development of Düppel, so I don’t know who developed it first. I do know that both Germany and Britain had come up with the idea independently but neither side was prepared to use it for fear of giving the idea to the other side. By 1943, however, Germany did not have the strength to launch a concerted bombing campaign against Britain, so the value of Düppel was not great. However, it was of immense use to Britain in its attempts to reduce losses in Bomber Command. Hence Britain used it first, but the Germans used it on later air attacks on Britain.

The US did have radar before the outbreak of war – in fact the term radar is a US creation. It was called RDF by British forces up until 1943.

The USAAF was using chaff during their bombing offensive. Yes, it was daylight but anything which would reduce early warning times, or enable smaller diversion operations to seem like large formations and therefore attract more fighters away from the real bomber force, would all work just as well against radar during the day as at night. Even by daylight, a bomber force would only be visible a few miles away – the range of radar was much greater and therefore the USAAF employed extensive radio countermeasures against them (not just chaff!)

Dave T- I think you may well find that the Gladiator makes a move to MAM when the new hangar is established.

Great! I thought that was to be the case, but wasn’t certain. It will be fantastic to have Faith fully restored sitting alongside the Hurricane and spitfire, and certainly much better than her current cramped conditions. Roll on the day! 🙂

Tell me about it!

My eBay user name is Tizard, so you’ll know it’s me if you see that. It’s usually photos or other small items (which are cheap to post!) that I bid on, but having just bought ‘Those Other Eagles’ by Christopher Shores, I don’t have much cash for anything else. 🙁

Please send me 100Kilos Of Hagus to eat.

Scotland Forever

Perhaps you should ask your Scottish relatives how to spell haggis? :p

I can confirm that Gee used a whip aerial on top of the fuselage, immediately behind the cockpit (at least was the location with Halifaxes and Lancasters). Monica used arrowhead aerials for transmission located underneath the turret, with the receiving aerial either side of the tailfin.

Looks like someone is trying to do just that(tracer_adlam) I hope so!!

I don’t know who tracer_adlam is, so I’m not going to criticise him. However (isn’t there always a ‘however’!), a look at some of his recent eBay feedback suggests to me that he trades in wartime aircraft spares. I guess that it’s more likely that, if the successful bidder, tracer_adlam won’t continue the build himself, but sell the items on to others for their projects.

As I say, this may be a completely wrong assumption, and it’s possible tracer_adlam does want to complete this project himself. I’m just passing on my observations.