Tim Zukas
6th Mar 2024, 18:09
From the January 1948 OAG
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1U1EfBB7sfWSLVe-_x3swFQRwjEaM7FDB/view?usp=sharing
Continental was all DC-3 then. They don't mention weather, so this must be something that didn't catch on. Did other airlines try whatever it is? Was this the start of Hughes Electronics?
Jhieminga
7th Mar 2024, 10:46
This is from 1948 too, and from the same company: https://ww2aircraft.net/forum/threads/hughes-type-1-ship-detection-radar-operator-maintenance-manual-including-wiring-diagram-1948.58452/
Most online articles talk about the development (by Hughes' company) of radar for fire control purposes around these years, but the technology obviously had several offshoots. By this time radar installations had shrunk to managable sizes for incorporation into regular airliners, but it still would have entailed a weight/space/drag penalty in some way.
Compilation from a number of sources. Unable to find any info on Hughes producing aircraft weather radar systems, I think the OAG may perhaps be referring to radar altimeter.
In 1945, Congress mandated and funded a large-scale, multi-agency meteorological study to investigate the causes and characteristics of thunderstorms. This study, which became known as the Thunderstorm Project, was a cooperative undertaking on the part of four federal agencies:the Weather Bureau, the Army Air Force, the Navy, and the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA, the predecessor of NASA).
The first phase of the Thunderstorm Project was carried out near Orlando, Florida during the summer of 1946.
As part of the study, pilots from the CCAAFB All-Weather Flying Division of the Air Material Command made numerous and nearly simultaneous flights through thunderstorms by flying a vertical stack of five radar-equipped (SCR-720) P-61C Black Widow airplanes at altitudes of approximately 5000, 10,000, 15,000, 20,000, and 25,000 feet. According to Roscoe Braham, Jr., senior analyst for the Thunderstorm Project, their objective was "to obtain the maximum number of traverses through each storm and to sample storms in all stages of development. No storm was to be avoided because it appeared too large or too violent"
The Thunderstorm Project was significant for many reasons, as evidenced by the fact the War Department gave it priority second only to the Bikini atomic bomb tests. It was the nation's first large-scale scientific study of thunderstorms and the first multi-agency meteorological project mandated and funded by Congress. As such, it was also the first weather research study in which radar and airplanes had a central role (radar was new, highly classified, and essentially limited to the military during WWII). The Project demonstrated that radar could be used to detect the most dangerous parts of thunderstorms and guide airplanes around them. Furthermore, the density of observations used during the Thunderstorm Project had never been attempted before and set the standard for similar projects to come. All of the analysis, computation, and plotting of the massive amount of data obtained from the Thunderstorm Project was performed by hand without the aid of computers by scientists at the University of Chicago and completed by May 1949. Most importantly, the theories and findings that stemmed from the Thunderstorm Project, such as the stages in the life-cycle of a thunderstorm, became the cornerstone of today's understanding of thunderstorms and related weather phenomena.
Bendix developed the first airborne weather radar in 1953, the RDR-1
The Lockheed 1049G was the first TWA aircraft to have radar, delivered in 1955, also the first model Constellation to have radar, either Bendix or RCA was available. TWA had the RCA AVQ-10.
https://www.smecc.org/rca_avq-10.htm
A video on the Thunderstorm Project, not much flying depicted.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JSKF6q2lIS4