The Lark anti-aircraft missile program began in late 1944, when the U.S. Navy needed a new weapon against the ever more serious Japanese suicide-bomber (Kamikaze) threat. In January 1945, a Lark configuration had been established, and requirements included ship defense against Kamikaze attack, reconnaissance aircraft, and enemy aircraft launching standoff weapons. In March that year, a contract was awarded to Fairchild for the production of 100 Lark test missiles. Because of slow progress by Fairchild, in a backup contract for another 100 Larks was awarded to Consolidated-Vultee in June 1945.
What plans were looked at to fit an operational system into ships?
Would there have been conversions of existing ships and/or new build?
Как и обещал, мы переходим от бомб - к ракетам) Enjoy! В отличие от Великобритании и Германии, США поначалу не уделяли особого внимания разработке управляемых зенитных ракет. Прямой необходимости в них не было: территория США находилась вне эффективной досягаемости авиации Оси. Кроме того, успехи…
fonzeppelin.livejournal.com
Unlike the UK and Germany, the US initially did not pay much attention to the development of guided anti-aircraft missiles. There was no direct need for them: the territory of the United States was beyond the effective reach of Axis aircraft. In addition, American advances in the development of fire control systems, radars, and proximity fuses (VT fuses) for projectiles allowed them to create an extremely reliable artillery air defense system.
The situation changed in 1944, when the American fleet in the Pacific faced the threat of kamikazes.The very first attacks by Japanese suicide pilots clearly demonstrated that conventional air defense was ineffective against them. The traditional approach to anti-aircraft defense of ships was to first force the enemy to abandon the attack - either by scaring off or inflicting damage. Against kamikaze, these principles obviously did not work.
It was possible to stop the kamikaze only by destroying it. However, the destructive action of the 20-mm Oerlikons and 40-mm Bofors shells - which formed the basis of the American fleet's short-range air defense - was not enough for this. The heavy 127-mm universal guns had insufficient rate of fire and were too slow to follow the target. Even the latest non-contact VT fuses on shells did not help.
Trying to solve the problem, the American admirals initiated an emergency program to develop a 76mm automatic gun capable of "filling" the dangerous "gap" between the 40mm and 127mm guns. Theoretically, such a gun would have time to fire enough heavy enough shells to be guaranteed to bring down the kamikaze. However, it was clear that the creation of a fundamentally new artillery system from scratch would take an unacceptably long time. In addition, many expressed doubts about its prospects. A likely increase in the speed of kamikaze projectiles (like the MXY-7 “Oka”) would drastically reduce the effectiveness of the new 76-mm gun - it simply would not have enough time to fire enough shells at a rapidly approaching enemy.
A fundamentally different solution was required. And that's what guided missiles looked like. After analyzing the results, American engineers came to the conclusion that a 45-kilogram (100-pound) warhead next to it can be guaranteed to be destroyed by a kamikaze at a distance of a standard VT fuse. It was clearly impossible to deliver such a heavy warhead with a projectile - but a rocket could do it without difficulty.
In late 1944, the US Navy Bureau of Aeronautics formulated requirements for a defensive missile designed to protect ships and formations from kamikaze attacks. According to the original task, the missile was supposed to have a maximum range of up to 18.3 kilometers (20,000 yards), and be able to intercept an aircraft flying at a speed of 740 km / h at an altitude of up to 9,000 meters (30,000 feet). The flight speed of the rocket itself was assumed to be “high subsonic”: the aerodynamics of transonic flight was still poorly understood. The whole program was called "Lark" (eng. Lark - a lark).
Naval Operations Headquarters officially approved the development of the Lark program in February 1945. By this point, the general concept of the rocket had already been formed: it had to be powered by a liquid fuel rocket engine (solid fuel at that time could not meet the range requirements), controlled by radio commands with flight tracking by the operator either visually or on the screen radar.
However, there was a problem in the transition from formulation to design. The usual practice of the Bureau of Aeronautics in the creation of aircraft was to transfer a package of formulated requirements and basic calculations to a private contractor for implementation. But since the Lark project required significant efforts in several areas at once - radio electronics, rocket engines, control systems - finding a contractor with sufficient competence in all these areas at once turned out to be unexpectedly difficult. As a result, having assessed the current situation, Commander Merrill came to the conclusion that no American company could cope with the development of a rocket on its own.
Instead, we decided to use a distributed approach. The Bureau of Aeronautics placed contracts for the development of individual Lark systems - the engine, control system, autopilot - with those companies that, in the opinion of the Bureau's management, had the most experience in the relevant field. The Bureau, however, reserved the coordination of work. As a result, Lark was developed by:
* Reaction Motors Company - rocket engine
* Raytheon Company - radar tracking system
* International Detrola - radio command control system
* Willard Corporation - power supply system
* Diehl Company - gyroscopic autopilot
* Kollman Instruments - angle sensors attack and flight speed
* The warhead and proximity VT fuse should have been standard, from the arsenals of the fleet.
The Fairchild Airplane and Engine Company took over the development of the fuselage and tail of the rocket, she was also responsible for the final assembly of all components into a finished product. The contract concluded in February 1945 provided for the manufacture of 100 rocket samples by the end of 1945.
However, the leadership of the Bureau was not fully satisfied with this decision. An inspection of the Fairchild factories in May 1945 revealed that the factories were overloaded with existing military orders, and the development of the Lark was proceeding unacceptably slowly. The anti-aircraft missile was required by the fleet "already yesterday." To insure against more than probable delays, the Bureau decided to duplicate the development by ordering a parallel project from Convair. In June 1945, an agreement was reached that Convair, under the Lark program, would develop its own version of the rocket using the same components, but not identical to the Fairchild project. A similar contract was signed for the supply of 100 rockets.
In late 1945, the Fairchild missile was given the designation KAQ, the Convair missile was designated KAY. In the new fleet coding system, the KA code meant an anti-aircraft missile, the letters Q and Y were the secret designations of the developer.
DESIGN:
Both Lark missiles had a cylindrical fuselage with a rounded bow and stern. The length of the fully assembled rocket was 4.24 meters, with the launch booster - 5.64 meters. Its fuselage diameter was 18 inches.
The device of the original version of "Lark".
The missile was equipped with a cruciform wing in the center of the fuselage, which housed the pitch and yaw controls. The wingspan was 1.88 meters. In the tail of the rocket there were X-shaped rotary stabilizers, which served to stabilize the flight of the rocket and control it in a roll.
The rocket was propelled by a LR2-RM-2 twin-chamber rocket engine designed and manufactured by Reaction Motors. It was one of the first mass-produced liquid propellant rocket engines in the United States. He worked on aniline (fuel) and red fuming nitric acid (oxidizer). The supply of fuel components from the tanks was displacement, using a cylinder of compressed nitrogen. Component supply pipes ran around the combustion chamber, performing regenerative cooling.
Lark engine.
Two combustion chambers equipped with nozzles of different diameters produced, respectively, 90 kgf and 180 kgf of thrust. The first was considered marching and worked continuously, the second was activated only when the flight speed dropped below the set one. Thus, in flight, the Lark maintained a more or less constant speed of about 1046 km/h (650 mph).
The rocket's tanks held 222.3 kg (490 lb) of fuel and oxidizer. The oxidizer tank was at the front of the rocket, in a carefully insulated section - fuming nitric acid is extremely corrosive. The fuel tank and the nitrogen cylinder formed a single structure, separated by a common partition. The flight time of the rocket was about 5 minutes.
Since the Lark main engine did not develop sufficient thrust to lift the rocket “from a place”, it was supposed to launch it from a long inclined ramp, along which the rocket had to be accelerated on a rail cart. A ship's catapult could be used as a ramp. However, this method of launch was not very convenient - the rocket was forced to burn a lot of fuel at the start, the launch system turned out to be cumbersome, and the risk of an accident increased.
As a result, the launch from the ramp was abandoned in favor of a short rail launch, using two solid-fuel launch boosters. As such, standard JATO aircraft boosters, type 12AS1000F, were used - i.e. capable of developing a thrust of 450 kg (1,000 lb) for 12 seconds. This was more than enough to get the rocket up to a steady speed. Accelerators were initially placed between the wings of the rocket.
Accelerators "Lark" on a square stabilizer frame.
However, when launching on boosters, a certain problem arose: at the moment of separation from the guide, the Lark still had too little speed, and its tail unit could not cope with the stabilization on the course. As a result, the boosters were moved to the tail, and supplemented with a resettable square frame, which played the role of additional plumage operating at low speeds. It allowed to stabilize the rocket during acceleration.
Guidance "Lark" was carried out manually by the operator, commands by radio. The ship's anti-aircraft fire control radar - a standard combination of Mk-12/22 used to point 127-mm universal guns - followed the selected target. The operator saw the target as a luminous dot on the screen. A launched missile equipped with a transponder entered the radar beam and appeared on the screen as a second, brighter dot. Using the joystick, the operator brought the point of the missile to the point of the target, thereby keeping the missile on the line of sight.
Control unit "Lark".
To guide the missile, a standard control system for unmanned targets, mass-produced in the United States, was used. The commands in it were given by five acoustic tones at the selected carrier frequency of the transmitter. On board the rocket, the received signal was fed in parallel to a filter system that allowed only certain tones to pass through. When the appropriate tone passed through the filter, an output relay in the control system was closed, and electric motors were activated, causing the precession of the autopilot gyroscope. The control was proportional: each command was given by the ratio of the duration of two tones.
The executive system on board the rocket was pneumatic and operated from a cylinder of compressed nitrogen. The controls for this differed depending on the developer: the Fairchild KAQ missile was controlled by flaps on the trailing edge of the fixed wings, while the Convair KAY missile was controlled by turning the entire wing. Roll stabilization was performed by tilting the tail of the missile.
As a warhead, Lark was equipped with a specially designed 100-pound fragmentation warhead. Initially, it was intended to use a high-explosive fragmentation bomb of a suitable weight in this role, but in the end it was decided that a specialized warhead would significantly increase the effectiveness of a rather expensive missile. The warhead was powered by a standard non-contact VT fuse, the detonation took place at a distance of 10-15 meters from the target.
It was assumed that the missile would be launched from cruisers and battleships to defend the entire formation on the outer lines. The targets for Lark were to be both the kamikaze themselves and their carriers, as well as carriers of other guided weapon systems.
DEVELOPMENT AND TESTING:
Although the Lark program had a high priority, the scale of the problems facing the developers did not allow them to be solved in less than a year. Shortcomings in the organization of the project also played a role: the “distributed” development scheme led to constant misunderstandings and conflicts between contractors. The staff of NRL and the Special Projects Bureau had to constantly intervene in the situation, arranging regular production meetings on a variety of occasions.
In many ways, the cause of all the misunderstandings was that electronics and aviation intersected rather ... weakly before World War II. Although the war gave a significant boost to aircraft electronic systems, they were mostly seen as just an additional load, not an integral part of the design. The level of cooperation required for the implementation of the Lark project was unusual for both parties. Aviators and electronic engineers spoke too different languages, and did not understand each other well.
All this clearly indicated to the command that the rocket would not be ready by the beginning of 1946. And the fleet needed an anti-aircraft missile urgently. As a result, the admirals made the following decision: to consider the Lark program as a long-term one, and in addition to it, to urgently develop the simplest and most primitive anti-aircraft missile, with the minimum acceptable characteristics. About this rocket - KAN "Little Joe" - will be discussed in the next article.
The admirals' assessment turned out to be absolutely correct. The first samples of "Lark" entered the throw tests only in 1946. The war had already ended by this time, and the urgent need for an anti-aircraft missile had disappeared.
However, both parallel programs - Fairchild's KAQ and Convair's KAY - were at a high degree of readiness for major components. The fleet did not have another missile program that promised comparable performance in a reasonable time. Therefore, work on the "Lark" continued after the war. Now it was already considered as a means of protecting formations from existing and future means of air attack.
The requirements for the range and height of interception, respectively, increased. With the end of World War II, manned kamikazes ceased to be a priority threat - now high-altitude bombers (including jet bombers) armed with guided missile and nuclear weapons have become such for the fleet.
Now Lark was expected to have a range of up to 45 kilometers (50,000 yards), a ceiling of 9,100 meters (30,000 feet) and the ability to maneuver with an overload of up to 4 g. To achieve such characteristics, it was necessary to replace the engine with a more advanced model LR2-RM-6. Rockets with such an engine were designated KAQ-2 and KAY-2. In 1948, however, in connection with the introduction of a new designation system for the US armed forces, "Lark" was renamed again. KAQ became SAM-N-2 and KAY became SAM-N-4.
In addition, the manual command radio control of the missile has already ceased to satisfy the naval command. The speed of the human reaction was clearly insufficient to control projectiles flying at a speed close to the speed of sound. At approach speeds of the order of 1800 kilometers per hour (at a speed of 1000 km / h, a rocket attacks a jet bomber flying at 800 km / h), a reaction delay of 0.1 seconds could mean a miss of fifty meters.
NLR engineers have developed two different fully automatic targeting systems - one for Fairchild's KAQ, the other for Convair's KAY. Since the range requirements have increased significantly, it was decided to make the guidance system two-stage, using guidance from the ship in the march area (to approach the target) and homing in the terminal (to attack the target). However, the guidance principles used in each of the systems were different: the engineers wanted to evaluate their prospects.
Two targeting systems for Lark: "Skylark" on the left and "Wasp" on the right.
Skylark system developed for Fairchild's KAQ missilebased on the original radio command guidance system - but now fully automated. Two AN / DPN-7 shipborne radars tracked the position of the target and the missile in space (for better visibility, the missile was equipped with an AN / DPN-3 transponder). Data on the position of the missile relative to the target was transmitted to the onboard electronic computer, which, in accordance with the programmed trajectory, generated commands to control the missile on the march.
When the distance between the KAQ and the target decreased to 16 km (10 miles), command guidance was disabled and semi-active homing was enabled. The missile was aimed at the AN / DPN-7 radar signal reflected from the target, automatically approaching the target. In order not to “chase” the target in vain, the approach technique was used at a constant sighting angle: the missile was aimed at the lead point, holding so that the target sighting angle remained constant.
"Wasp" system designed for KAY by "Convair"took a different approach. On the marching leg, the missile was guided by the "saddle beam" method, automatically keeping itself within the narrow beam of the ship's AN / SPQ-2 radar accompanying the target. No commands were received from the ship: the rocket simply determined its position in the beam, and was kept in it. Such a system was simpler and more resistant to interference than command guidance.
At the terminal section, KAY was supposed to be guided using the Raytheon AN / APN-23 active radar homing head. The missile's radar sent a signal into space, and used a rotating antenna to cone-scan the reflected echo from the target. Thus, guidance on the terminal section was completely autonomous, independent of the carrier ship.
The first series of tests took place in June 1946, at the Bureau of Munitions range in Inyokern (California). In the six months to January 1947, twenty-four launches of prototype missiles were made - sixteen KAQs, and eight KAYs. The first tests were carried out with missiles equipped only with an autopilot. Subsequent launches were carried out with a manual radio command control system.
Inspection before launch.
The first launches were carried out from a 150-meter ramp inclined at an angle of 8 degrees, along which the Lark accelerated on a launch cart. Such a launch made it possible to simplify stabilization: the rocket was separated from the cart, having already accelerated to a sufficient speed. The cart itself was equipped with both booster rockets and retro rockets designed to slow it down at the end of the track. In the future, they switched to launches from a short rail using drop boosters. Three missiles were also launched in the air, from the aircraft.
The tests were not always safe: in one launch, the rocket had to demonstrate the sequential execution of the “right” and “left” commands, but due to a failure in the control system, it perceived any incoming command as “right”. Taking off from the ramp, the rocket first correctly performed a turn to the right. But then, when the operator gave the command to "left," the missile instead veered right again, rushing straight in the direction of warehouses full of thousands of tons of gunpowder! The stunned operator pulled the joystick to the right, the rocket turned right again, and flew over the Salt Lake Wells plant, which made explosive lenses for atomic bombs. The terrified operator again tried to take control of the rocket, and she turned right again - heading straight for the China Lake test site. On the way, the rocket turned right again, and lay down on the reverse course, eventually crashing into the ground 200 meters from the launch ramp. After this incident, at the categorical demand of the military, all experimental missiles were equipped with a self-destruct system that allowed them to be safely blown up in the air if the missile flew out of the range.
Accelerator section.
In 1947, NRL completed the development of the "Wasp" guidance system. On trials in the summer of 1947, equipped with an automatic beam-holding system (connected to an autopilot), the SNB-2 twin-engine aircraft successfully followed the path of a ground-based radar beam up to a distance of 82 kilometers. An excellent result in terms of time!
However, significant problems arose with the development of an active radar seeker for Wasp. Doppler radars capable of identifying a target taken for tracking by a specific value of the Doppler shift have only just begun to be created. The selection of the target taken for tracking by the signal delay was a priori inaccurate, prone to errors. Although in the end it was possible to achieve a relatively stable operation of the system, the engineers were inclined to believe that the AN / APN-23 could never be brought to acceptable reliability for combat use. As a result, the main effort was focused on the "Skylark" system, which was considered closer to implementation.
Tests in 1947 moved to the new Point Mugu test site (California). There, launches were carried out both from ground installations and from a ship - AVM-1 USS Norton Sound. Initially built as a floating base for seaplanes, after the war it was re-equipped into an experimental ship for testing guided missiles. In 1948, the modernization was completed: among other equipment, the ship received a launch ramp and an AN / SPQ-2 guidance radar.
The first ever launch of an anti-aircraft missile from a ship.
On January 10, the first successful launch of Lark (model KAQ-1) from a spacecraft was performed. Thus began the long and successful career of Norton Sound, which served as a test platform for virtually all new naval weapons systems from 1948 to 1986.
On January 13, 1950, the KAY-2 missile with the “Wasp” control system achieved the first ever interception of an air target by an anti-aircraft guided missile. In the role of such was the F6F unmanned aircraft - a former fighter aircraft converted to radio control - flying at an altitude of 2250 meters, 18 kilometers from the launcher. The launched missile (tail number 90) passed along the path of the radar beam accompanying the flying target, then activated its homing head and approached the target at the fuse triggering distance.
On December 18, 1951, the most successful launch of the Lark (the exact model is not known) took place: the rocket achieved a direct hit on the F6F flying target. All previous successful interceptions were carried out by undermining the missile warhead at some distance from the target. During the same launch, the rocket was guided so precisely that it crashed directly into the target, tearing off the wing console.
In general, the program was progressing successfully enough that the missile could already be considered suitable for adoption.
Lark launch from Norton Sound.
And, nevertheless, the Lark never entered service. The reason for this was quite obvious: moral obsolescence. Over the years since the war, aerodynamics and radio electronics have advanced significantly, and a rather slow subsonic missile no longer seemed like a promising means of long-range interception. The Lark's ability to intercept transonic (and even more so promising supersonic) targets was reduced almost exclusively to a frontal attack on a target heading straight for the ship. If the target was moving obliquely—for example, a plane dropping a guided bomb and performing an evasive maneuver—the chances of Lark intercepting it were minimal.
At the same time, the post-war Bumblebee program, aimed at creating a long-range supersonic anti-aircraft missile with a ramjet engine, demonstrated significant potential. Such a projectile not only significantly surpassed the Lark in terms of capabilities, but was also much simpler and safer to handle: the ramjet engine ran on ordinary kerosene and did not require complex and dangerous oxidizers to handle.
Refueling "Lark" with an oxidizer. The chemical protection suits of the technicians make it clear that this procedure was extremely unsafe.
Although the adoption of the Lark into service could have taken place as early as the first half of the 1950s, the Navy did not see the point in spending money and effort on equipping warships with a missile that would be hopelessly outdated in just a few years. As a result, on July 8, 1953, the Lark project was closed. The navy's anti-aircraft missile efforts focused on the Bumblebee program, which ultimately produced both a direct result (the long-range RIM-8 Talos missile) and an unexpected side effect: the RIM-2 Terrier solid-propellant intermediate-range missile, based on successful test rocket design. The direct descendants of the "Terrier" eventually became the missiles of the "Standard" family, which now form the basis of the anti-aircraft weapons of the American fleet.
"Lark" at the US Navy Museum.
However, this was not the end of The Lark. Work on the rocket continued - now as a purely research project aimed at studying the dynamics and guidance systems of guided missiles. Both missiles received new designations: CTV-N-9 for the Fairchild product and CTV-N-10 for the Convair model. Launches of manufactured missiles were carried out in the interests of the army, navy and air force until the end of the 1950s. Based on the Lark, by order of the US Marine Corps, the MGM-18 Lacrosse tactical missile was developed, which was in service in 1959-1964.
SOURCES:
* An Interpretative History of the Pacific Missile Test Center - Maxwell White (1991)
* Design of the Lark and Loon guidance computer: technical memorandum report No.35 - Bureau of Aeronautic (1950)
* Magnificent mavericks: transition of the Naval Ordnance Test Station from rocket station to research, development, test, and evaluation center, 1948-58 - Elizabeth Babcock (2008)
* NRL Report: Issue 8300 - Louis A. Gebhard, NRL (1979)
* OP 1664 U.S. Explosive Ordnance (Vol.2) - A Bureau of Ordnance Publications (1947)
* US Naval Weapons - Norman Friedman, Conway Maritime Press (1983)
From what I've found in the following 1949 survey of U.S. Navy Radars, the AN/DPN-7 appears to be the Semi-Active Seeker within the Skylark guidance arrangement. It is described as being a 7 and 1/4 inch parabaloid antenna operating between 2700 and 2950 MegaHertz (S-Band) with a reliable tracking distance of 26,000 yards (13 nautical miles) against an F6F target.
The document says that this was illuminated using an AN/SPG-2 radar but, given that it was already involved with the program and has almost the same frequency range as the AN/DPN-7, I suspect this is just a renamed AN/SPQ-2 radar.
For a bit of "what-if", let's assume that the Lark was either developed more quickly and/or the war continued, so Larks were deployed to the fleet.
Where would Lark launchers be placed on ships? I don't think the Navy would want the big missiles kept topside in all weather, so in the 40mm/3" gun tubs seems unlikely. Replacing a 5" mount or two, with missiles kept belowdecks in the old 5" magazine?
For a bit of "what-if", let's assume that the Lark was either developed more quickly and/or the war continued, so Larks were deployed to the fleet.
Where would Lark launchers be placed on ships? I don't think the Navy would want the big missiles kept topside in all weather, so in the 40mm/3" gun tubs seems unlikely. Replacing a 5" mount or two, with missiles kept belowdecks in the old 5" magazine?
I would probably use the aircraft catapults on things like cruisers. I'm fairly certain there was already similar ideas to employ these for the use of several of the Gorgon missiles variants and with the cumbersome trapeze settup seen on Norton Sound and the land based tests I believe that would offer the easiest opportunity for integration.
Additionally, you could store missiles in the aircraft hangars. It wouldn't be a MK 26 GMLS by any stretch of the imagination but it would allow you to reload between raids using the onboard cranes and it would be minimally invasive in terms of installation (sans the radar and fire control equipment).
I would probably use the aircraft catapults on things like cruisers. I'm fairly certain there was already similar ideas to employ these for the use of several of the Gorgon missiles variants and with the cumbersome trapeze settup seen on Norton Sound and the land based tests I believe that would offer the easiest opportunity for integration.
As long as there was some connection between the gun directors and the catapults, though it wouldn't necessarily be hard to add some dedicated sound-powered phone circuits. Ships carry spare SP phone wires and j-boxes for damage control, the trick would be bulkhead penetrations.
Additionally, you could store missiles in the aircraft hangars. It wouldn't be a MK 26 GMLS by any stretch of the imagination but it would allow you to reload between raids using the onboard cranes and it would be minimally invasive in terms of installation (sans the radar and fire control equipment).
That I don't know about. Red Fuming Nitric Acid belowdecks is terrifying...
But storing the aniline fuel in the aviation fuel bunkers would be fine. Or just storing the missiles fueled with aniline belowdecks, and the RFNA topside. Add RFNA oxidizer immediately before flight, or as soon as "Set Battlestations Air" is passed.
I wouldn't characterize my "solution" as a good one, more like the "least bad" way of dealing with a quick rollout of the weapon. A weapon of that size isn't exactly nimble and the design doesn't lend itself to rail storage or launch like later 3Ts or even the GAPA.
As for handling the direction of the weapon, you can initiate either a radar track and command link or beam-riding capture after launch and with the fairly substantial range of the weapon (for the time), you could then set it on its course. You could concievably do things like swing it around the ship to hit a target on the other side at the cost of range of course. Given the limited traverse arc of most catapults this would probably be necessary. The only important thing would be checking to ensure it was recieving all the signals before launch which would probably require umbilicals to be run to the site.
As for handling the direction of the weapon, you can initiate either a radar track and command link or beam-riding capture after launch and with the fairly substantial range of the weapon (for the time), you could then set it on its course. You could concievably do things like swing it around the ship to hit a target on the other side at the cost of range of course. Given the limited traverse arc of most catapults this would probably be necessary. The only important thing would be checking to ensure it was recieving all the signals before launch which would probably require umbilicals to be run to the site.
I'm actually picturing an odd engagement that would take some training, more or less point the bow of the ship at the incoming to get a Lark or two launched, then turn broadside to get the most 5" guns in play.
The first launches were carried out from a 150-meter ramp inclined at an angle of 8 degrees, along which the Lark accelerated on a launch cart. Such a launch made it possible to simplify stabilization: the rocket was separated from the cart, having already accelerated to a sufficient speed. The cart itself was equipped with both booster rockets and retro rockets designed to slow it down at the end of the track. In the future, they switched to launches from a short rail using drop boosters. Three missiles were also launched in the air, from the aircraft.
At the same time, the post-war Bumblebee program, aimed at creating a long-range supersonic anti-aircraft missile with a ramjet engine, demonstrated significant potential. Such a projectile not only significantly surpassed the Lark in terms of capabilities, but was also much simpler and safer to handle: the ramjet engine ran on ordinary kerosene and did not require complex and dangerous oxidizers to handle.
Refueling "Lark" with an oxidizer. The chemical protection suits of the technicians make it clear that this procedure was extremely unsafe.
The top photo is actually the CTV-N-9 (and later -10) version of the Lark. These were ordered by the USAF for missile flight control testing in 1949. The middle photo is of a Lark launch at Inyokern CA (aka China Lake). The bottom is USAF personnel fueling a CTV-N-9 prior to launch.
The USAF ordered 50 in 1949. These were shipped to Cape Canaveral FL for testing. The test flights were made from Launch Complex 1 and 2 throughout the early 50's.
The top photo is actually the CTV-N-9 (and later -10) version of the Lark. These were ordered by the USAF for missile flight control testing in 1949. The middle photo is of a Lark launch at Inyokern CA (aka China Lake). The bottom is USAF personnel fueling a CTV-N-9 prior to launch.
The USAF ordered 50 in 1949. These were shipped to Cape Canaveral FL for testing. The test flights were made from Launch Complex 1 and 2 throughout the early 50's.
Also derived from Lark was the CTV (Control Test Vehicle) series of subsonic missiles used to develop flight controls for the Talos missile as part of Bumblebee.
A CTV with boosters on the launcher at Topsail Is. N. Carolina,
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