Lightning Radar
In the early ‘70s I was fortunate enough to get a couple of rides in the T5, firstly with Pete Chapman and then with Mike Smith. It was a bit of a blur at the time, but Pete did try to show me how the radar worked, a big job in 45 minutes, although I do remember him putting a ring over the target, which locked the radar in a narrow scan.
I recently watched Ian Black in a video and something he said about the Phantom radar caused me to wonder about the mental arithmetic which went into calculating the altitude of the target. On the last generation weather radars, using the one 1 in 60 rule we used to work out the tops of CBs with the simple formula of 100ft per degree of tilt per nautical mile, so if the radar was tilted down at 2 degrees with a cloud 40 miles away the tops would be 2x100x40 or 8000ft below us. I am assuming that the Lightning mate had to make a similar calculation. My recollection is hazy to say the least, but I seem to remember horizontal bars across the screen. Were these radar tilt bars?
Would any Lightning mate like to explain the target acquisition process and the mental calculations that had to be made to determine target altitude and speed? Thank you in anticipation.