Birth of the Smart Bomber
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Birth of the Smart Bomber
Very good documentry on last night channel four,. .Birth of the Smart Bomber,. .I suspect many missed it because it was in the . .Secrets of the Dead, series, not normally covering aviation topics.. .Didn't notice it myself until early last night, was going to post a heads up, but could not get into pprune. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Frown]" src="frown.gif" />
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A very sensible and informative documentary on the Oboe technology (no, not the pink Oboe), with a bizarre five minutes on the zany occult beliefs of its inventor. It was as though someone had proposed or made an excellent technology/history prog, but in order to sell it had been forced to put in some rubbish about fairy pixie goblins etc in order to get the thing made or shown.. .. .PS: one of the many excellent things about the programme was that Waterbeach got bombed by a pleasant Jaguar dude in an Otter. Hopefully they'll get Outwell on the next mission.. . . . <small>[ 04 March 2002, 16:17: Message edited by: FNG ]</small>
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Very interesting programme. Certainly much more informative than the history books show. Indeed, it seemed at odds with the likes of Max Hastings and Ralph Barker, whose books didn't give much sway to OBOE. Much more of a tendency twards Gee.
Ecce Homo! Loquitur...
An excellent book on the development of such aids, and the simultaneous development of jamming equipment to confuse and deny their German equivalents is "Confound and Destroy: 100 Group and the Bomber Support Campaign" by Martin Streetly. . .. .Sad how a whole group dwindled to just 360 Sqn and then just a civilian training organisation like FRA.
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Pigboat.. nope, it was a Twin Otter. Looked like it had FOUR bladed props though, not the original three bladers on the PT6..... err sorry. I'll just re stow my anorak over here... <img border="0" title="" alt="[Roll Eyes]" src="rolleyes.gif" /> . .. .Fine documentary though, well worth a repeat methinks.. .. .Rgds Bex
The demonstration by the Jagaur pilot on how ineffective map, compass and stopwatch night target finding could be was excellent. Really brought it home how hard (impossible) accurate bombing was using these methods.. .. .OBOE was the first decent nav aid the RAF had. No good for Berlin / East German targets though due to the curvature of the earth. Did give the Krups works a good pasting though. Strange how my dad still had to go back to visit it in '44 and '45 though <img border="0" title="" alt="[Big Grin]" src="biggrin.gif" /> . .. .Overall a good prog but they didn't mention how quickly and effectively the Germans jammed it. This gave rise to the GEE and H2S systems which were not dependant on ground stations.. .. .I could also have done without the cr@ppy moody shots of the inventors eyes with accompanying cr@ppy music every 10 minutes too. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Mad]" src="mad.gif" /> . .. .They also forgot to mention that the Germans used a very similar system called Knickenbein (Spelling). We jammed that as effectively as the Germans jammed OBOE.
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If anyone who missed it is interested, I did tape it. Missed the first few minutes though.. .. .Can send it on for those who want it. E-mail me delivery details and I'll send it to the first, who can then pass it on. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Smile]" src="smile.gif" /> . .. .Regards,. .R
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LowNSlow, without being able to quote a reference I think you are mistaken in saying that Oboe was the first nav aid and gave rise to Gee.. .. .I believe it was the other way around.. .Gee was introduced first in the hope that it would be accurate enough for use as a blind bombing aid. It wasn't, but was still much better than anything used before.. .. .However, despite that it was an excellent accurate nav aid for both outbound and inbound legs.. .. .It was this inaccuracy as a blind bombing aid that led to the development and introduction of Oboe.. .. .Incidently, the Germans could and did jam it when they found out about it, but only at their end. Thus it could be still be used for a fair way outbound and was invaluble for guiding the aircraft home on their way back.. . . . <small>[ 06 March 2002, 03:07: Message edited by: henry crun ]</small>
Henry according to the info I have, you are correct, Gee came first. In a nutshell, Gee was a system of transmitters that laid out a radio grid across Europe. It allowed the aircraft navigators, using a CRT and special Gee charts on the aircraft, to establish a position when they were within 400 miles of the home transmitters. Accuracy at max range was within six miles. The first raid was carried out against the Krupp works in Essen, on March 8, 1942. 211 bombers were used, 82 of which were fitted with Gee. The raid was considered a failure, since the bombs fell just about everywhere except on the Krupp works. The second raid using Gee was on the night of March 28, against Lubeck. It was considered a success, in that 200 acres of the city were levelled, with 2000 buildings destroyed.. .. .Bex, you weren't seeing things. That four bladed propeller mod on the Twotter is done by Zimex, I believe. They use the series 300 with the PT6-27 engines, flat rated to 620 SHP. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Smile]" src="smile.gif" />
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Pigboat, thats right, it was the first of the parabolic nav aids that were subsequently used into the sixties I believe.. .. .Loran was another which I think came into use sometime after Gee. Postwar Decca developed a civil version which saw some use and even a long range version which was good for trans atlantic use, but this never caught on.. .. .In UK in the 50's we used to do Gee approaches with the mark3 version which could be quite accurate depending how well aligned the runway was with one of the Gee lines.
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"Most Secret War" British Scientific Intelligence 1939-1945 by R V Jones (ISBN 0 340 24169 1) is also very good. . .. .Talks about early British a/c detetion methods (including sound and heat), but mainly the battle with the German systems (Knickebein, Wotan etc) especially the jamming and deflection of the beams.. .. .Gee, Oboe, H2S etc are also dealt with in a very informative manner on the British side, moving on to the V-1 and V-2's towards the end of the war. Fascinating!
Ecce Homo! Loquitur...
Then there was Rebecca/Eureka. They still had the ground station at RAF Leuchars in 1986. . .. . <a href="http://www.qsl.net/pe1ngz/ew-eureka-rebecca.html" target="_blank">Rebecca/Eureka</a>
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LORAN is now at the LORAN C version. Was very popular inthe 1990's in the US GA community as an area navigation system, also some instrument approaches were written but there were some problems with getting useful minima. With the advent of GPS receivers of reasonable cost many of the thousands of LORAN C receivers were replaced in GA. LAst LOARAN C ground station mfg I know of was RACAL Megapulse.. .. .Interesting how the GPS uses the same kind of time/distance/angle information, albeit much more accurate and from the ultimate high ground, as the pioneering systems.
Henry, had no idea that that system was still in use as late as that. May have not been exactly state of the art, but what the heck, it worked. When I first started flying IFR, there were still a few radio range stations left in this country. The lost orientation procedure was still part of our company training syllabus.
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Pigboat, what was state of the art at that time.. . <img border="0" title="" alt="[Smile]" src="smile.gif" /> . .. .I am not aware of anything that was better apart from a ground radar fixing service.. .I don't know what replaced it, presumably Tacan.. .. .Certainly Gee mark3 was quick and easy to use, any half decent nav could give his pilot an accurate fix in a few seconds.. .. .As for easy, good heavens, even I could operate it. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Big Grin]" src="biggrin.gif" />
Heh heh heh, come to think of it...maybe it was state of the art. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Smile]" src="smile.gif" /> We operated a DC-3 freighter that boasted one ILS r/x, with six, count 'em six, fixed frequencies. They finally declared us "persona non grata" at YUL one day when we didn't have the ILS freq for the approach in use. That's how state of the art we were. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Big Grin]" src="biggrin.gif" />
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Pom Pax, Mk2 was a bit before my time.
I probably would have struggled with that because it involved counting the divisions on the crt didn't it ?
The half decent remark referred to one or two of the, how can I put it, slower thinking rear seaters.
I probably would have struggled with that because it involved counting the divisions on the crt didn't it ?
The half decent remark referred to one or two of the, how can I put it, slower thinking rear seaters.