V-Bomber electronic suite curious names
 

I've been giving myslef a headache recently trying to recall the different oddball sounding terms and references, I believe for security reasons, used back in the day to refere to elements of the V-Bomber Force's EW suite. Could any kindly person, ex-Valiant/Vulcan/Victor perhaps enlighten me. I recall a ppruner responded on a different thread some years back and mentioned a couple in passing!

FB:confused:

IF IIRC the colours were used for various TYPES of program - eg Blue = Missile, Green = electronics and then the usual "pick-it-off a -list" MoD code name

FB - there is a list of Rainbow Codes (use that term for Googlage) on Wikipedia. I’d provide the link, but my iPad is having a senior moment and not copying from address bars this morning...

Quite a few mentioned here.

https://www.rafmuseum.org.uk/documen...ic-Warfare.pdf

GREEN PALM - VHF comms barrage jammer (Mks 1A & 2 V-Bombers)
BLUE DIVER - metric barrage jammer* (Mks 1A & 2 V- Bombers)
BLUE SAGA - passive RWR (Mks 1A & 2 V-Bombers)
RED SHRIMP – S (or E)-band barrage jammer (Mks 1A & 2 V-Bombers)
RED STEER Mk 1 - tail warning radar (Mk 2 V-Bombers)
RED STEER Mk 2 - tail warning radar (Mk 2 V-Bombers)

.....Figure 1 shows the locations of the Vulcan’s main jammers. In the early days there was a VHF communications jammer, ARI 18074, known as GREEN PALM; it is not actually shown in the diagram but its antenna was at the top of the fin. ARI 18075, BLUE DIVER, had notched aerials at the wing tips, and the ARI 18076, RED SHRIMP, antennas were normally located on the flat plates between Nos 3 and 4 engines, although most of the BLUE STEEL aircraft had them between Nos 1 and 2 engines as well. The jammer power units and the transmitters were housed in the large cans within the tail bulge. All of this kit had been specifically designed to counter the Soviet high level threats of the 1950s but they were of rather less value once the force had adopted low level tactics.

Figure 2 is a closer view of the tail showing the massive size of the power units and the transmitter cans of the DIVERS and SHRIMPS. I do not recall ever actually knowing what their total weight was, but it must have been several thousand pounds. In fact it was 1978 before I came to appreciate just how big those cans really were.

We had lost an aircraft just outside of Chicago and I was involved in the Board of Inquiry. Apart from the engines and the undercarriage units, the most substantial pieces of wreckage were the cans and I was responsible for making sure that they were returned safely to the UK. They each stood about 31⁄2 feet high and had a diameter of about 2 feet – about the size of a domestic dustbin. They drew a lot of electrical power in their transmit mode, the total load on the aircraft being about 40 KW, which went some way to explaining why the Vulcan B.2 was blessed with four engine-driven 40 KvA alternators.

The biggest single consumer of power in the Vulcan, however, was the Vapour Cycle Cooling Pack, the VCCP. Located towards the rear of the tail compartment, it circulated a water-glycol mixture around the ECM cans. The VCCP drew about 8-10 KW in normal running, but a massive 40 KW on start-up. You will recall that reference has previously been made to the constraints imposed on the employment of EW equipment by the limited power supplies of earlier aeroplanes. Power was no longer a problem with the V-bombers, but heat dissipation was – hence the VCCP.......

Full(?) list here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainbow_Code

Rainbow Code

The Rainbow Codes were a series of code names used to disguise the nature of various British military research projects. They were mainly used by the Ministry of Supply from the end of the Second World War until 1958, when the ministry was broken up and its functions distributed among the forces. The codes were replaced by an alphanumeric code system.....

Many thanks all,

When I first came across these names I thought the AEO was pulling my teenage leg!:ok:

FB:)

Post-Corporate, the Tin Triangle's graceful glide-into-the-sunset coincided with the first programme of enhancement (or should that be conception) to Jaguar's self-defence suite; second hand flare dispensers from the States, ECM and chaff pods, and under-wing AIM-9s. And the PWR?; recovered from the outgoing Vulcans!

Drawback was that the PWR's black-boxes were tuned to the length of cabling between Vulcan's cockpit and fin tip, hence 100 feet of co-ax, winding backwards and forwards in Jaguar's spine fairing.

ORAC

See you in a whole new light.

You may find this of interest. The size outside the airframe is mind boggling. Makes you wonder how, withe weight and size if the ECM kit described above, they had any room left for fuel and bombs.....

Tatjana J. van Vark

Navigation and Bombing System NBS
(H2S Mk 9A, Navigation and Bombing Computer NBC)
used in V-bombers Victor, Vulcan and Valiant.

http://www.tatjavanvark.nl/tvve/vulc095s.jpg

http://www.tatjavanvark.nl/tvve/vrad80b.jpg

I don’t think that works. Blue Parrot was the Buccaneer radar. Blue jacket (I think I remember) was the Doppler.

Seem to remember Green Satin.

Green Satin was a steam driven navigation system in the Valiant. It presented a series of clicking numbers over which the Nav Plotter chanted incarnations. The driving force was a series of gyros spinning in all directions inside an airtight container which was within kicking distance of the pilots when they climbed upstairs to the cockpit.

Once seated the LHS pilot had another useless piece of kit called Orange Putter. This was supposed to warn you of aircraft approaching from astern. In all my years of tanking it never picked anything up.

I believe the Vulcan RWR was also fitted to our Chinooks just before deploying to Akrotiri for ops into Beirut. After an approx 45 min lecture (mostly audio tapes of different WP radars 'believed' to be in Lebanon) about it, I was able to identify and listen to the GunDish radar as fitted to ZSU 23-4 scanning for us on our entry into Beirut and locking on as we exited (below 100ft). Happy Days.

I should add I recognised the Gun Dish thanks to maritime training and nothing to do with the Odiham lecture

If it did ever lock on to an aircraft astern wasn’t the blip thing supposed to sprout ‘wings’ at one nm range ?
I remember it was tested in the air by firing a Very cartridge full of window/chaff which did show up on the screen !

Slightly off subject. I cannot remember whether we used Magnetic or True on the MFS Beam Compass in the Vulcan B2. I am fairly sure that the rear crew used True. Can anyone help me out - my OCU notes are somewhere in the loft but it would take a week or two to find them and another week to get the answer.

ACW

IIRC we used True for en-route navigation by selecting "Remote" on the MFS Selector. Magnetic was used for takeoff, approach and landing as well as for ATC assigned headings but I cannot recall what the switch setting was called, maybe Normal. The other selection on the panel was Bomb. I'm sure there was a bit more to it, but it was a long time ago.

YS

The updated Jaguar RWR was not from the Vulcan. The main boxes were the same size, except for the indicator which had to be shorter so it's deflection amplifiers were in a separate box.
The Vulcan had ARI 18228/6 the Jaguar gained the ARI 18228/13PD which was a digital version (Skyguardian) and instead of coded lines had a 3 character identifier for idents.
​​​​​Chinook_Puma were updated to Skyguardian as well. The ex Tornado RWET was converted to Skyguardian for Helicopter crew training as was the Free Standing Trainer.
Skyguardian immediately identified by its black screen vice analogue white screen

Blue Jacket was certainly the Doppler, augmented later on by GPIC instead of the Roller Map. GPIC was the Ground Position Indicator Correction unit designed and manufactured by Ferranti Edinburgh

Thanks YS.

ACW

Green Satin was a doppler radar giving groundspeed & drift angle.
3 dustbins in the Victor "back hatch", antenna just below facing down and an indicator in the cockpit

Did not the "Blue" refer to Maritime? - as in Blue Fox etc

Read my second link st post #4....

....Looking to avoid making this sort of mistake, Ministry of Supply (MoS) initiated a system that would be entirely random and deliberately unrelated to the program in any way,[2] while still being easy to remember.

Each rainbow code name was constructed from a randomly selected colour, plus an (often appropriate) noun taken from a list, .....

The names were mostly dropped with the end of the Ministry in 1959....

Rainbow codes, or at least names that look like them without being official, have occasionally been used for some modern systems; current examples include the Orange Reaper Electronic Support Measures system and the Blue Vixen radar[4]—the latter most likely so named because it was a replacement for the Blue Fox radar.....

Not to mention the entirely unofficial 'Blue Eric'- the cobbled together ECM (?) kit shoehorned into an ADEN cannon pod for Harriers engaged on Op CORPORATE.

Given Blue Steel's role I doubt it.

Neither was Blue Danube. Yellow Sun had nothing to do with EW either.

And the renowned Tornado ADV “Blue Circle” radar...... :}

Ah! But at least Blue Eric was 'real' - and worked!! (Always loved the heat dispersal method: machine a large lump of copper with lots of fins and stick it in the airflow @ 420 kts +)

I’m pretty sure Orange Putter was named by someone familiar with the Malay language.

Blue Circle was as concrete a design as they come....

Green Satin Canberra PR9 and others, Blue Silk Shackleton Doppler variant , MR3 The MR2 and 3 also had fixtures for Orange Harvest although it was often not installed or functional. Violet Picture also comes to mind but I cannot recall what the system was.
I Thought I had forgotten all this stuff

I was employed in the Electronics Centre at RAF Finningley 1966 to 1969 approximately and had occasional contact with ECM maintenance and can recollect that it could be a messy task removing the can covers if there had been glycol leaks. I seem to remember a special sump area of the workshop for this activity. The lower members were delegated this task . Rank had privilege!

And Orange Yeoman ended up keeping people fafe over the UK, at Mil ATCRUs. :ok:

Violet Picture was the PLB (SARBE) homer. Fitted to the Shackleton, Nimrod and I suspect various helicopters as well.

Then there’s Yellow Gate, Nimrod MR2 ESM system.

YS

Orange Putter in some Canberra's. Tail warning? So it was said!

Bill

I’ll bite!
(Suspect my Malay was limited to Bukit Timah and Bukit Panjang !)
What did Orange P mean in Malay ?

Named after the Yeoman Bus Compony who ran the bus service around Malvern at the time the development of the radar started (for the Army) apparently.

[QUOTE]Violet Picture was the PLB (SARBE) homer. Fitted to the Shackleton, Nimrod and I suspect various helicopters as well.[/QUOTE]

Yep, certainly fitted to the Wessex

"Touchè, Pussycat!" 👍

Here's my informed contribution, wasn't the new AIR in the See Harrier FRS1 known as Blue Vixen?! Also, did they have another name for the Tonka's Foxhunter? Pink Parrot or something!?:cool:

FB

Violet Picture
 

YS Thank you for the reminder re Violet Picture. I now remember it well, including the cross pointer indicator and mainplane antenna systems. I did not have much contact with the Nimrod as after leaving 203 Sqn when it re equipped with the Nimrod I went to Lynham to the C130. Happy days.

I think FRS.1's radar was Blue Fox with Blue Vixen being the upgrade for the F/A2.

My understanding is that the random colour/word combination was chosen as during the war the Allies had been able to guess the role of some pieces of German equipment due to the name.