Originally Posted by
BEagle
Are you sure it was ex-Lightning radar? As far as I'm aware, the Ferranti AIRPASS AI-23 was only fitted to the lightning; Red Steer was from an earlier generation of radar systems. We were told it came out of old Meteor night fighters, but I don't know whether that was true.
Can't recall the difference between Red Steer 1 and 2. Was Red Steer 1 based on the old AI-20 and Red Steer 2 the ex-Meat Box kit?
I really meant based on as opposed to from the Lightning. Certainly it was far more advanced than anything that might have been fitted to the Meteor or Javelin. It had a good detection range against bombers at about 20 miles.
The Red Steer 1, OTOH, was diabolical and only understandable by AEOs. It used a conical scan technique with display centre being, if I guess correctly, max range and target being displayed in azimuth and elevation displayed as departure from the centre. Min range was at the edge. It was unstabilised. A contact left, high, range 5, would be displayed at 10 o'clock, an inch or so from the centre, provided the aircraft was S&L.
The first ground return would appear at 6 o'clock and aircraft height. As the time base ran out so the ground return would sweep out left and right and as it increased in range so it would sweep in to the centre of the display.
OTOH my description may be arse about face as the only thing I ever recognised was the ground.