Radio navigation and landing
When the war started the aeroplane was relatively new as an instrument of war.
How to wield it effectively meant a steep learning curve and some of the
greatest inventions that affect how we fly around the world today.
Much emphasis was placed on Bomber Command, particularly because in the early
part of the war it was the only part of the British armed forces capable of
striking back at Germany. It gave the nation hope at a time when there was
little. For this, there was a high price to pay and the chances of a bomber
command serviceman surviving the war was less than that of an infantryman in
WWI. Of the 125,000 British aircrew who served, a staggering 55,573 were killed
in action.
One of the most pressing problems was getting planes to and from the target
safely, while increasing accuracy. At the start of the war there were no
navigation systems and many bomber crews were wildly off target, completely
missing the areas that they were supposed to be attacking. This was made even
harder by Bomber Command's decision to fly night time sorties only, under the
thought that it was safer than flying daytime raids.
In order to help the crews, several navigation systems were created. For
accurate blind bombing, the systems Oboe and Gee-H (radio-based systems) were
used, although these could only be used by a very number of planes at once. This
limited them to being used by the pathfinder force, which used dedicated planes
to drop targeting flares in order to improve accuracy for the rest of the
bombers.
For everyone else, GEE came into play. GEE was a radio navigation system
invented by Robert Dippy, designed to be used by multiple planes. The system
worked using three broadcast base stations, sending out transmissions at regular
intervals. A master station sent out a single pulse, then the first slave sent
out a single pulse one millisecond later, followed 1ms later by the master
sending out a double pulse, and finally the second slave sent out a single pulse
1ms later. The entire system repeated every 4ms.
Receiving equipment on board the plane displayed the pulses from the three
stations as blips on an oscilloscope. As the time between the pulses was
strictly regimented, the display equipment would give the difference in time
between the reception of each pulse, and thus the distance from each
station.
Hyperbolae charts helped the navigator plot the plane's position. Each
hyperbolic line showed a constant time difference for the master and slave
stations. Using this, the navigator could look for the intersection of the two
hyberbolae representing the slave stations to work out the position.
TO CONTINUE PLEASE GO TO: http://www.expertreviews.co.uk/general/1286401/top-10-technical-innovations-of-world-war-2/3
(the next part -- page 3 -- can be clicked on at the bottom of the page)
How to wield it effectively meant a steep learning curve and some of the
greatest inventions that affect how we fly around the world today.
Much emphasis was placed on Bomber Command, particularly because in the early
part of the war it was the only part of the British armed forces capable of
striking back at Germany. It gave the nation hope at a time when there was
little. For this, there was a high price to pay and the chances of a bomber
command serviceman surviving the war was less than that of an infantryman in
WWI. Of the 125,000 British aircrew who served, a staggering 55,573 were killed
in action.
One of the most pressing problems was getting planes to and from the target
safely, while increasing accuracy. At the start of the war there were no
navigation systems and many bomber crews were wildly off target, completely
missing the areas that they were supposed to be attacking. This was made even
harder by Bomber Command's decision to fly night time sorties only, under the
thought that it was safer than flying daytime raids.
In order to help the crews, several navigation systems were created. For
accurate blind bombing, the systems Oboe and Gee-H (radio-based systems) were
used, although these could only be used by a very number of planes at once. This
limited them to being used by the pathfinder force, which used dedicated planes
to drop targeting flares in order to improve accuracy for the rest of the
bombers.
For everyone else, GEE came into play. GEE was a radio navigation system
invented by Robert Dippy, designed to be used by multiple planes. The system
worked using three broadcast base stations, sending out transmissions at regular
intervals. A master station sent out a single pulse, then the first slave sent
out a single pulse one millisecond later, followed 1ms later by the master
sending out a double pulse, and finally the second slave sent out a single pulse
1ms later. The entire system repeated every 4ms.
Receiving equipment on board the plane displayed the pulses from the three
stations as blips on an oscilloscope. As the time between the pulses was
strictly regimented, the display equipment would give the difference in time
between the reception of each pulse, and thus the distance from each
station.
Hyperbolae charts helped the navigator plot the plane's position. Each
hyperbolic line showed a constant time difference for the master and slave
stations. Using this, the navigator could look for the intersection of the two
hyberbolae representing the slave stations to work out the position.
TO CONTINUE PLEASE GO TO: http://www.expertreviews.co.uk/general/1286401/top-10-technical-innovations-of-world-war-2/3
(the next part -- page 3 -- can be clicked on at the bottom of the page)