Originally Posted by
Davef68
Dave
The fact that the RAF could have got the Genie under Project E is covered in a meeting about Air Defence at the Defence Research Policy Committee in Oct 1958. (National Archives file AVIA 65/1547 - Air Defence of the UK). The text of the meeting below covers what was said at the time.
8. A defence in depth could be provided either by a fighter defence or by a long range guided weapon defence. We have no long range guided weapon project in our programme. The nearest American project of this kind is BOMARC which has had a very troublesome development-career and is by no means out of the wood yet. On the other hand, we have in the Lightning a very promising fighter and since, in any case, we must maintain some fighter component in the defence for as far ahead as we can see, it seems only sensible to make use of the work which has already been done on the Lightning. The Lightning, armed with FIRESTREAK, has an operational ceiling of about 50,000 feet and, in the electronic jamming conditions to be expected, will be capable of competing only with a subsonic bomber threat. It is, therefore, completely inadequate to meet the potential supersonic bomber threat in 1963, but as it has already attained a speed of Mach 1.9, it could cope with such a threat provided it was equipped with a collision course weapon system.
9. The Americans have indicated that they are prepared to make available on Project E term their nuclear headed collision course rocket GENIE. This weapon could be in service by 1962. It would make the Lightning capable of meeting Mach 2 bombers up to 65,000 feet. The development costs involved in fitting this weapon in the Lightning would be of the order of £2m.