Agatha
21st Jan 2015, 19:30
2015 will be the 75th Anniversary of the Battle of Britain and also the 75th Anniversary of the Royal Air Force's Fighter Control/Aerospace Battle Management specialisation which was 'created' on 10th June 1940 to help to operate the Dowding System which proved so vital to the success of the Battle of Britain.
Want to know more?
Prior to 1935 air commanders were not able to exercise any control over air defence battles; quite simply they had no idea where the enemy aircraft were until it was too late to prevent attacks on the UK and they had little or no information on where their fighter aircraft were once they had been scrambled.
The discovery of radar in 1935 changed the whole situation. Air Chief Marshal Dowding recognised that radar was a battle-winning technological advance and, as Commander in Chief of Fighter Command, worked tirelessly to build a system of air defence which included innovations such as the creation of the long-range Chain Home radar network, the shorter-range radars known as Chain Home (Low) and a Filter Centre which was based at Royal Air Force Bentley Priory.
Radar information was of little, or no, use in its ‘raw’ form and required skilled analysis to produce a coherent and timely air picture from which the ebb and flow of the air battle could be managed; this became known as filtering and put the Filter Centre at the very heart of Dowding’s air defence system.
Critical to the operation of this rapidly growing air defence system was a new airman trade known as Clerk Special Duties. Clerks Special Duties were deployed throughout the system as radar operators, plotters and tellers at both operations centres and at the Filter Centre.
Every radar contact was reported to the Filter Centre and plotted on a gridded map table. There were many duplications and ambiguities that had to be resolved to determine an accurate three-dimensional track with an identity. The product of this complex analysis then had to be disseminated rapidly to operations rooms across the UK so that commanders could successfully manage their part of the Battle of Britain from a common air picture.
Initially the filtering process was developed and designed by scientists and it worked well. However, when the Royal Air Force took over the filtering task, the performance deteriorated markedly because personnel were drafted into the job at SNCO level from other trades without any appreciation of the skill required to make it work. This was rectified by specifically recruiting Royal Air Force personnel with a scientific or mathematical aptitude and elevating the personnel to the status of an officer in recognition of the importance of the task.
The first 15 Royal Air Force Filterer Officers took up post in June 1940 and the performance of the Filter Centre improved dramatically. The commissioning of these Filterer Officers was the de facto birth of a Royal Air Force specialisation known as Fighter Control; known in today's Service as Aerospace Battle Management.
From this small beginning in 1940, the expansion of air defence systems was very rapid with the greatest demand coming from overseas theatres of operation where the deployment of radar and filter centres was growing at an almost unsustainable rate. The problem was further exacerbated in 1941 when the task of filtering was de-centralised and a further 6 Filter Centres being established in the UK alone.
During the Battle of Britain, pilots initially conducted the operational task of fighter control, which was to become the name of the Specialisation for nearly 70 years. Sector commanders were delegated tactical control of fighters within a defined geographical area and a team of sector controllers assisted them. Working from the common air picture disseminated from the Filter Centre, which was further enhanced by Observer Corps information, and plotted on the operations table, the sector controllers could then scramble fighters to meet enemy attacks. Once airborne, the position of the Royal Air Force fighters was also plotted on the operations table based upon triangulated information from radio transmissions. With both enemy and friendly forces plotted on the same operations table, the sector controllers now had the 2 main ingredients needed to direct the friendly fighters into a tactically advantageous position to counter the enemy air threat.
From September 1940 the enemy changed tactics and launched more night attacks and the sector system of control, with its time lags and lack of overland information during the night, was not able to counter this new threat.
The development of radars that rotated to scan 360 degrees and technical advancements which enabled an aircraft’s position and movement to be viewed in plan position meant that aircraft could now be tracked overland day or night and the data provided an accurate basis for interception. This led to the next significant step in the development of the Fighter Control specialisation, the creation of Ground Controlled Interception units. Initially 6 ground controlled interception units were commissioned and it seemed sensible to redeploy sector controllers from the sector stations to act as Interception Controllers. Sadly the results were quite varied but the immediate impact and success of ground controlled interception units led to a very rapid expansion in the number of units and there were simply not enough sector controllers available. Consequently it became necessary to train ab initio Interception Controllers; and the second key sub-specialisation of Fighter Control was created.
The Association of RAF Fighter Control Officers has been lucky enough to track down seven WAAF veterans who served during the Battle of Britain and have some fabulous stories to tell but if you have any imagery, memories or ideas of how we can celebrate this Anniversary, please get in touch with the Association via its Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/raffca?ref=hl or website Contact - Association of RAF Fighter Control Officers (http://www.raffca.org.uk/cms/contact-page.html) - we'd love to hear from you!
Want to know more?
Prior to 1935 air commanders were not able to exercise any control over air defence battles; quite simply they had no idea where the enemy aircraft were until it was too late to prevent attacks on the UK and they had little or no information on where their fighter aircraft were once they had been scrambled.
The discovery of radar in 1935 changed the whole situation. Air Chief Marshal Dowding recognised that radar was a battle-winning technological advance and, as Commander in Chief of Fighter Command, worked tirelessly to build a system of air defence which included innovations such as the creation of the long-range Chain Home radar network, the shorter-range radars known as Chain Home (Low) and a Filter Centre which was based at Royal Air Force Bentley Priory.
Radar information was of little, or no, use in its ‘raw’ form and required skilled analysis to produce a coherent and timely air picture from which the ebb and flow of the air battle could be managed; this became known as filtering and put the Filter Centre at the very heart of Dowding’s air defence system.
Critical to the operation of this rapidly growing air defence system was a new airman trade known as Clerk Special Duties. Clerks Special Duties were deployed throughout the system as radar operators, plotters and tellers at both operations centres and at the Filter Centre.
Every radar contact was reported to the Filter Centre and plotted on a gridded map table. There were many duplications and ambiguities that had to be resolved to determine an accurate three-dimensional track with an identity. The product of this complex analysis then had to be disseminated rapidly to operations rooms across the UK so that commanders could successfully manage their part of the Battle of Britain from a common air picture.
Initially the filtering process was developed and designed by scientists and it worked well. However, when the Royal Air Force took over the filtering task, the performance deteriorated markedly because personnel were drafted into the job at SNCO level from other trades without any appreciation of the skill required to make it work. This was rectified by specifically recruiting Royal Air Force personnel with a scientific or mathematical aptitude and elevating the personnel to the status of an officer in recognition of the importance of the task.
The first 15 Royal Air Force Filterer Officers took up post in June 1940 and the performance of the Filter Centre improved dramatically. The commissioning of these Filterer Officers was the de facto birth of a Royal Air Force specialisation known as Fighter Control; known in today's Service as Aerospace Battle Management.
From this small beginning in 1940, the expansion of air defence systems was very rapid with the greatest demand coming from overseas theatres of operation where the deployment of radar and filter centres was growing at an almost unsustainable rate. The problem was further exacerbated in 1941 when the task of filtering was de-centralised and a further 6 Filter Centres being established in the UK alone.
During the Battle of Britain, pilots initially conducted the operational task of fighter control, which was to become the name of the Specialisation for nearly 70 years. Sector commanders were delegated tactical control of fighters within a defined geographical area and a team of sector controllers assisted them. Working from the common air picture disseminated from the Filter Centre, which was further enhanced by Observer Corps information, and plotted on the operations table, the sector controllers could then scramble fighters to meet enemy attacks. Once airborne, the position of the Royal Air Force fighters was also plotted on the operations table based upon triangulated information from radio transmissions. With both enemy and friendly forces plotted on the same operations table, the sector controllers now had the 2 main ingredients needed to direct the friendly fighters into a tactically advantageous position to counter the enemy air threat.
From September 1940 the enemy changed tactics and launched more night attacks and the sector system of control, with its time lags and lack of overland information during the night, was not able to counter this new threat.
The development of radars that rotated to scan 360 degrees and technical advancements which enabled an aircraft’s position and movement to be viewed in plan position meant that aircraft could now be tracked overland day or night and the data provided an accurate basis for interception. This led to the next significant step in the development of the Fighter Control specialisation, the creation of Ground Controlled Interception units. Initially 6 ground controlled interception units were commissioned and it seemed sensible to redeploy sector controllers from the sector stations to act as Interception Controllers. Sadly the results were quite varied but the immediate impact and success of ground controlled interception units led to a very rapid expansion in the number of units and there were simply not enough sector controllers available. Consequently it became necessary to train ab initio Interception Controllers; and the second key sub-specialisation of Fighter Control was created.
The Association of RAF Fighter Control Officers has been lucky enough to track down seven WAAF veterans who served during the Battle of Britain and have some fabulous stories to tell but if you have any imagery, memories or ideas of how we can celebrate this Anniversary, please get in touch with the Association via its Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/raffca?ref=hl or website Contact - Association of RAF Fighter Control Officers (http://www.raffca.org.uk/cms/contact-page.html) - we'd love to hear from you!