BBC 2 : Castles In The Sky
 

Just a heads up for those Members interested ...

http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/corporate/im...24rl4w.jpg/624

More here ...

BBC - Castles In The Sky - Media centre

Thursday 4 September 2014
9.00pm-10.30pm
BBC TWO BBC TWO HD

Let's hope the BBC do the story justice :ok:

Best ...

Coff.

Thanks for the heads up - I shall try to stay awake that late :(

Cheers Coff,

All noted, could be interesting.

Smudge:ok:

Just seen a trailer of this on the Beeb and it looks like a programme not to be missed. I wonder what mentions will be made of Bawdsey Manor and Orfordness?

We would all be speaking German now without the invention of radar and the warnings made it possible to scramble squadrons "as required" rather than having to maintain standing patrols which inevitably, 90% of the time would be in the wrong place at the wrong time and short of fuel.

One to record and enjoy again methinks.

MB

Madbob:

Also the ability and foresight of ACM (at the time) Dowding, to devise the fighter control system we still see today. A man who was cr****d on from a great height by RAF political machination.

Interesting squadron state board in the background of Coffs picture. When I was involved with the restoration of actual 11 Group ops center in the early seventies the station line up read:

Tangmere, Northweald, Hornchurch, Kenley, Biggin Hill, Debden, Nprtholt.

Bob C

The Scottish news just reported on the unveiling of what is unbelievably the first ever memorial to the man, erected in his home town of Brechin.

Sorry don't have a link but its a nice statue with him looking skyward with what looks to be a Spitfire in his hand.

Top job Bob.

Coochycool ...

Here you go :ok:

http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/image...2033_photo.jpg

Image Credit : BBC

More here ...

BBC News - Statue of radar pioneer Watson-Watt unveiled in Brechin

Ah thanks Coffs.


If anyone's ever in the vicinity I can also recommend the Montrose Aviation Heritage Centre just 6 miles down the road.


At what was remarkably the UKs first military airfield.


And the cemetery on the edge of town is a veritable who's who of aviation pioneers going back to 1912.

Thanks again for the nudge ... I shall be in a transit hotel near LHR tomorrow night, with an early taxi to Terminal 5. iPlayer time when I get home at the end of the month, I suspect.

I shall certainly watch!
I like the statue. Well done to all involved!

OAP

All the radar chain did was give initial warning and direction of the attack. Plus an estimate of the raid size and some indication of the mission of the raid (namely if the track was moving at high speed and high, it was most likely a fighter sweep). Of course this allowed the fighters on the ground to be scrambled or brought to cockpit readiness before the raid reached the coast and allowed them to get to altitude. But the majority of the intercept was controlled using ROC plots as neither of the Chain Home systems in use worked over land. Also neither CH or CHL worked down to the deck, so very low level raids were only detected by the ROC as they crossed the coast, fortunately only two Luftwaffe units specialised in low level attack and though they were successful against coastal targets, against deeper penetration targets they got a right royal shoeing by the fighter defences. The command and control system was indeed the real game changer and though called the Dowding system, the basic principles were drawn up by E B Ashmore, a RFC General in 1917 to defend against Zeppelins and Gotha bomber raids. This system then became the basis of the ROC tracking system. What Dowding did was streamline it (after the first Chain Home based exercise ended in complete failure) plus introduced the Filter system to correlate the multiple plots from each track plotted by multiple radars which overloaded the controllers (I think it was Keith Park who was Dowding's SASO at the time that came up with that idea). I bet none of that will be covered in this program. Of course Wattson Watt didn't invent radar (A German came up with the concept in 1904 and the US Navy and the Germans had working very short range pulse radars before the first British trial even took place (and all that did was prove that an aircraft (A Heyford) would reflect enough radio energy to allow it to be tracked at range by the vertical movement of a dot on an oscilloscope. The BBC transmitter used was CW and no ranging was possible)). What he did do was head the team that invented Air Defence primary radar, IFF/SSR and Airborne radar, plus push for the development of high power microwave valves, which of course lead to the Cavity Magnetron which or course was a war winning invention.

For those Members interested ...

RAF Swingate Dover Kent "Hell-Fire Corner" WWII Chain Home Station ... what's left of it :(

Quite a few interesting pictures here from a Local History Group ...

RAF Swingate, Dover.

Many will probably remember seeing the reconstructed four masts appearing in film "The Battle of Britain"

http://lh4.ggpht.com/-xi2-MdjS_Lo/UP...arstation3.jpg

WWII Chain Home RDF configuration ... I'm not certain this pic is of Dover but shows three of four Tx masts (left) and the four Rx masts (right).

http://spitfiresite.com/uploaded_ima...chain-home.jpg

Coff.

PS. As a young Dover lad ... I had a ringside seat during filming :ok:

Shame to belittle the efforts of early RADAR MJF. Surely, the work of these pioneers was of great value and, led to the developments and investment that produced further fruit? I understand though, if the thrust of the programme misses the important element of the ROC? As for Sir Keith Park?
Seems to me to have been a giant of a man!

OAP

Agreed OAP ... Let's see how the BBC treat the subject ... Remembering that it's badged as "Factual Drama"

MJ was only pointing the shortfalls of the original systems and the fact that the principles existed in theory before being proven. Most things are evolution rather than revolution, and you got a wider view of the subject as a whole.

Onceapilot & Coff

I've spent the majority of a now finished 30 years in the RAF working on the systems that were born out of what this program is about, know the history of most of it backwards and will no doubt watch this program with comments of 'Very well researched' and 'Bollc@cks, that's not how it happened at all' in equal measure. I don't see Dowding's name in the cast list, though hopefully he will get some small mention seeing he's the man who authorised the funding required set up the trials at Orfordness in the first place.

.
It was a peace winning invention as well in the form of the microwave oven. It was discovered during trials of H2S radar that food nearby would warm up. This was caused by the cavity magnetron. Unfortunately ,as was the case in most of these things, the yanks developed it.

Rolling 20

About the only place you will find a Magnetron in most countries is in a Microwave Oven. I can't think of any kit that the British Military have that still uses them bar what is at Spadeadam (the Russian stuff). It shouldn't have been a surprise to anybody that high energy radio waves cooked things, seeing that what Robert Watson Watt was first asked to find out was is a radio death ray possible. Skip Wilkins did the calculations that proved that it was, but not with anything close to the power output of the equipment available at the time. H2S may have cooked people on the ground, But I've seen footage of RDF mechanics picking up the bodies of dead birds laying at the base of Chain Home transmitter aerials and GCI antennas after picking a very bad place to roast overnight.

Magnetron
 

Indeed we do still use them, in prodigious quantities.

In one case, as the major user among about 13 countries who use the same kit, it falls to us to ensure the supply chain is sustained. To that end, the tube is second sourced to a Scandinavian company. It also falls to us to maintain the Environmental Test Chambers which have very restrictive rules about certification and calibration. (MoD owns them, not industry). They MUST be certified annually by the original manufacturer, which is increasingly difficult and expensive (and I'm sure is quietly ignored). About 22 years ago it was alarming to find the ETCs were mounted on wooden plinths which had all rotted. Thankfully, Merlin had forgotten to cost such testing (come on, TEST a radar? You must be joking) and were in a panic, so I "gifted" the facility to them and they coughed up to repair it. Better that than admit they'd built all this expensive kit that could not be certified for about 4 years. That's what happens when you do away with Requirement Managers posts and the Fire Control and Surveillance Radar IPT, disbanded in 1990!