Vampire

[Itswindyout]

Forgive the stupid question, but thought this best place to show my ignorance.

On the Vampire there are several sticki outi things....2 on upper surface of each wing, and one either side of fuselage.


Thanks in advance....windy

[Gainesy]

... and the stupid question would be? :rolleyes:

[Onan the Clumsy]

I think you just made it Gainesy :}

[Yellow Sun]

On the Vampire there are several sticki outi things....2 on upper surface of each wing, and one either side of fuselage

"Rebecca" DME system with a homing capability. Fitted to the JP3/4/5 until they were updated with VOR\DME\ILS by the "A" mod.

YS

[sycamore]

Windy, assuming you are talking about the T11 Vamp, which in common with most contemporary trainers/ front-line had a navigation system called Rebecca/Eureka, an early form of Tacan/DME.The blade aerials on the wings were receiver/homing indicator aerials, and the transmitter aerial on the fuselage. A control box in the cockpit had to be set to the appropriate frequencies, and the range would be indicated on a range meter, which also incorporated a l/r indicator, so you could turn until the needle was centred, see if range was increasing/dec., and plot a line from heading to get a fix, or get two or more ranges with some deft `knob twiddling` and plot that. On early Hunters the tx aerial was on the underfuselage engine access panel, and the directional.rx aerials in the intakes Later incorporation of Tacan/dme/vor probably deleted most. A single `whip` aerial is most likely a `standby` UHF , as in most cases it only operated on 1-2 frequencies, and did not require the short stubby aerial on later jets...... Of course, someone will undoubtedly correct my ` oldtimers memory `..... Syc.

[Bumz_Rush]

I had not thought about this as a popssible answer...

On this same airframe there are two extra shorter blade, below the fuselage, and at perhaps 40o from the centreline.

Was it even considered for civil use, or did the Omni Range arrive just in time....

Can any one out there recomend any reading matter on this kit.

End of stupid questions.....

Windy

[Yellow Sun]

Was it even considered for civil use, or did the Omni Range arrive just in time....

May have been considered, but AFAIK it was never used by civil aircraft. I was never aware of any equipment not sited on a milaitary airfield. For some further information see here Rebbeca/Eureka (http://www.qsl.net/pe1ngz/airforce/airforce-raf/raf-eureka-rebecca.html) . It describes earlier versions of the kit, but the principles are the same. The JP carried the MK8 version and I suspect that the Vampire did as well.

YS