Originally Posted by
WindyMiller1
I was leading the Watchman engineering team at Cowes when we went through the the processes of selling it to NATS. We offered our standard tower, that was in service around the world, exceeded all the requirements and looked the part. NATS rejected it and insisted on the 'scaffolding look alike' version. We hated it but the customer is always right etc etc.
The Farnborough Watchman bought under the MOD contract was mounted on the concrete tower (much taller than the 'standard' Watchman tower) originally erected for the AR1 but initially there was some problem with the mouning plate and the tilt was wrong so the scanner had to be removed and a new mounting plate manufactured and installed.
When it eventually was available for operational use (1991?), it served us well (although its coverage wasn't as good as the AR1 it replaced) until it too was replaced by that horrible Raytheon ASR10 in November 2002 which was nowhere near as good as the Watchman.