V-Bomber Avionics Developments?

JFC Fuller

JFC Fuller

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The V-bomber fleet spent most of its life with relatively primitive avionics for the age, as far as I can tell only two major(ish) changes were ever made, the first was the addition of the ARI 5959 (General Dynamics AN/APN-170) J-band terrain following radar, however this came with restrictions- it could only be used between 220 knots and 350 knots so was somewhat less than ideal. The TFR was installed in a thimble in the nose and can be seen here: http://studysupport.info/vulcanbomber/tfr.png

The other change that was made was what would today be called a UOR, 5 of the 6 aircraft selected for the Black Buck mission were equipped with the Delco Carousel inertial navigation system. The lack of an INS seems to have been something of an odd omission for such a long range aircraft in service for so long.

Is anybody aware of any other major changes proposed for the V-bombers avionics suite? I am thinking especially around the time that the original TFR was fitted in 1965/66, I assume that other alternatives were considered? Perhaps including a more capable solution, possibly derived from the TSR-2 TFR work? Or possibly a system combined with an INS?

There was a list of modifications for the V-bombers that would support their conversion to the low-level role:

ASR.3600 - Sidecsan radar installation, some books say H2S was modified to do this, was it?*
Ground Position Indicator Mk.6 for all Mk.2 aircraft, this happened as it was part of the fit required to use Blue Steel
Decca Mk.4 roller map, a Decca Type 9033 was installed in the co-pilot's station of a Valiant for low-level trials in Canada in 1961, was it installed more widely?
Green Satin modified to function down to the lowest possible level
Terrain Following Radar, became the GD radar (ARI.5959)

*Various sidescan configurations were tried by the RRE on Victors:

Yellow Aster: I believe this was the H2S Mk.9 scanner locked at 90 degrees and feeding a separate Rapid Processing Unit
Blue Shadow: Apparently mounted inside the H2S Mk.9 radome, rigid 5ft aerials feeding similar equipment to Yellow Aster

Blue Shadow was installed in Canberras, B.6(BS), apparently about 25 of them and operated with the Akrotiri Strike Wing and in ELINT roles as a navigational fixing aid but it is a much earlier radar than the decision to make the V-Bombers low level. Blue Shadow is extensively covered in a number of recent books (Listening In and Black Box Canberras IIRC).
 
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Does a week of silence suggest no such plan? B-52 (and various Bears) continue today because other weapons than gravity Big Bangs, and other Missions than Counter Value, were hung on an infinitely renewed platform. UK Ministers, post-Skybolt, perceived their intent as to cease the heavy operational expense - starting with 5 aircrew - as soon as smaller, cheaper-to-own tactical systems arrived. The logic of incremental, add-on tasks, starting with NEAF/WE177B, caused Mk.2 Vs to linger rather longer, but "as is". The GD/TFR exercise was a) resoundingly necessary to bridge the Skybolt gap before Polaris, and b) low risk/low cost. The logic of post-steam boxes liberating the Fleet from the constraints of NBS was successfully sold by HSAL - not to a retread of HSAL's Avro product, but to new build of HSAL's Blackburn one.
 
Trawling through various things today I came across something interesting which is somewhat relevant here. According to the New Scientist (19th August 1971), Ferranti continued its TFR programme after the cancellation of TSR-2 and flew a total of 5 models in a Canberra and Buccaneer and tried to get such a system installed in the Phantom- I have not seen this anywhere before, does anyone have any further information?
 
MinTech did continue TFR Applied Research on through the gap, TSR.2-MRCA, in order to retain a UK capability. Germany insisted that MRCA avionics procurement be open to US bidders, because the DM:$ offset issue required a chunk of Germany's Defence Budget to be spent in $. When Texas Instruments won MRCA TFR in mid-1971, MinTech's appetite to prop up Ferranti waned.
 
alertken said:
MinTech did continue TFR Applied Research on through the gap, TSR.2-MRCA, in order to retain a UK capability. Germany insisted that MRCA avionics procurement be open to US bidders, because the DM:$ offset issue required a chunk of Germany's Defence Budget to be spent in $. When Texas Instruments won MRCA TFR in mid-1971, MinTech's appetite to prop up Ferranti waned.
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Not just Ferranti, Elliots were in on the team as well, the former was responsible for TFR whilst the latter did the mapping and detection element though they had to work together extremely closely due to the fact that the staff requirement demanded both antennas be integrated into a single back-end. However the team did get a consolation prize in the form of Foxhunter which was lead by Marconi-Elliot with Ferranti as the major subcontractor providing the transmitter, scanner, drive and servo units. The RAF originally wanted a Ka band mapping radar and an X band TFR whereas the Germans wanted Ku-band for both, the Germans managed to get the Italians on board and the final nail in the coffin was when Elliot and Ferranti came out twice as expensive with its bid as Texas instruments did.

According to Victor Units of the Cold War by Andrew Brookes and Chris Davey, the General Dynamics TFR was also trialled in a Victor B.2R XI.164 and was later installed across the B.2R fleet in a cone in the Victors nose, apparently it never proved effective. I am still surprised that no British origin option, or more comprehensive/effective solution was considered...?
 
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Until the 12/62 Nassau substitution of Polaris for Skybolt, Blue Steel + Yellow Sun Mk.2/Mk.2 Vulcan/Victor were to do the business, at very high level. Mk.1 Vulc/Vict would be gone/and/or Valiant replacement IFR/SR as Skybolt came in, 1966-ish. Unclear what Airships had in mind for post-BS Mk.2 Victor.

Overnight change, early-1963. Quick paint job on some Vulcans to show off unreal low-level capability. Ferranti overloaded on adapting Westinghouse to be TSR.2 TFR. GD offered as is, quick, fixed price. No brainer. Still took into 1965 before fitted.
 
Ken,

I am in complete agreement about why the chosen solution was so ad-hoc, as you say, pre Skybolt cancellation the aircraft were either high-altitude penetrators or (to be) Skybolt carriers. When Polaris was chosen it was assumed that TSR-2 would be the theatre bomber (Canberra) replacement from the mid-60s onwards meaning the V-force would fade away as the Polaris fleet worked up. Even when the the theatre bomber requirement was split into 50 F-111K and a vague number of AFVG in 66/67 it was still assumed that the (by then GD TFR equipped) V-bombers, serving as interim theatre bombers, would leave service from about 1974 as AFVG entered service; nobody ever really expected the V-bombers to serve on in the low level theatre role until the early 80s as actually happened. However, British industry never usually missed an opportunity to generate an unsolicited brochure for mandarin consumption.
 
unsolicited brochure for mandarin consumption. Oh! How cynical!
Though 5 crew members became 2, I suggest that retention of a Medium Bomber Force, 1968 (SSBN) to 1983, was primarily to facilitate introduction of Tornado, committed by 1975 as a >300-strong Force. That investment, in turn, was to present UK commitment, to lock in US and FRG, to the various iterations of rolling, flexible in N.Germany. More modest bangs on 200KT WE177C. Flocks of Tornados might do first sortie on iron, with enough surviving for a bigger bang second sortie. Never realistic on TSR.2/F-111K.

You are trying to put logic and reason into plans for RAF, 1964-83: there was none. During this period the logic wobbled around an iron interlude before a tactical nuke exchange, followed by Armageddon. Suicide or surrender. But in practice Commanders in the process of being overrun would politely ask for help by the biggest bang. UK simply never resolved this dilemma. So Papers fluctuated between many and few of everything. Gowing has 1946 Staffs' demand for hundreds of (to be) Blue Danube.

Ministers are more prepared to say No to new build and thus not recruit future lads, than to fire our brave boys in whom much training/infrastructure has already been sunk. So, cobble some more life into existing inventory. Run on Canberra through half-a-century until the last fatigue-hour has been used up, by the last Pontius still sentient, but don't buy P.1121 or VS-swinger, or...or.
 
sll: i have a note that GD TFR was ordered 2/65, 158 sets, and deployed through 1966..but I also have a note : daylight only to 1979. Is this my, or my sources, bad? Radar..daylight? Confused.ken.
 
ASR.3600 - NBS Mk 2/H2S Mk 2 sidescan modification. Terrain Following Radar for low level V-bombers, esp Vulcan.

Don't have a date for it nor any other detail.

Chris
 
Does anybody have more info on Vulcan EW equipment up to 1982? The B.2 model received a revamped EW suite and later the "tactical style" ARI alerter. However, the Black Buck missions used an ALQ-101 pod, a rather limited piece of ECM, to spoof Argentine radars. These were TPS-43 search radars plus Skyguards/Roland for targetting plus some other, not too state of the art radar equipment. I guess Vulcan EW suite wasn't tuned to handle these tactical threats, or maybe its reliability/operational state wasn't too good? Antenna emplacement? Any ideas?
 
NBS Mk 2 (OR.3600) was applied to the Blue Steel aircraft. H2S scanner locked sideways (stabilised) feeding an RPU. Yellow Aster was Blue Shadow antennae in nose with photographic recorders. Neither were specifically for low-level role. The advantage of sideways-looking (for the same antenna length) is better resolution/definition. NBS Mk 2 was all about identifying fix-points for en-route navigation, Yellow Aster was radar reconnaissance.
 
JFC Fuller said:
The V-bomber fleet spent most of its life with relatively primitive avionics for the age, as far as I can tell only two major(ish) changes were ever made, the first was the addition of the ARI 5959 (General Dynamics AN/APN-170) J-band terrain following radar, however this came with restrictions- it could only be used between 220 knots and 350 knots so was somewhat less than ideal. The TFR was installed in a thimble in the nose and can be seen here: http://studysupport.info/vulcanbomber/tfr.png

The other change that was made was what would today be called a UOR, 5 of the 6 aircraft selected for the Black Buck mission were equipped with the Delco Carousel inertial navigation system. The lack of an INS seems to have been something of an odd omission for such a long range aircraft in service for so long.

Is anybody aware of any other major changes proposed for the V-bombers avionics suite? I am thinking especially around the time that the original TFR was fitted in 1965/66, I assume that other alternatives were considered? Perhaps including a more capable solution, possibly derived from the TSR-2 TFR work? Or possibly a system combined with an INS?

There was a list of modifications for the V-bombers that would support their conversion to the low-level role:

ASR.3600 - Sidecsan radar installation, some books say H2S was modified to do this, was it?*
Ground Position Indicator Mk.6 for all Mk.2 aircraft, this happened as it was part of the fit required to use Blue Steel
Decca Mk.4 roller map, a Decca Type 9033 was installed in the co-pilot's station of a Valiant for low-level trials in Canada in 1961, was it installed more widely?
Green Satin modified to function down to the lowest possible level
Terrain Following Radar, became the GD radar (ARI.5959)

*Various sidescan configurations were tried by the RRE on Victors:

Yellow Aster: I believe this was the H2S Mk.9 scanner locked at 90 degrees and feeding a separate Rapid Processing Unit
Blue Shadow: Apparently mounted inside the H2S Mk.9 radome, rigid 5ft aerials feeding similar equipment to Yellow Aster

Blue Shadow was installed in Canberras, B.6(BS), apparently about 25 of them and operated with the Akrotiri Strike Wing and in ELINT roles as a navigational fixing aid but it is a much earlier radar than the decision to make the V-Bombers low level. Blue Shadow is extensively covered in a number of recent books (Listening In and Black Box Canberras IIRC).
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Have you any further information on the Decca Mk4 roller map system that was trialled in the Valiant aircraft please? I have been collecting information on this aircraft for many years now and I should like to include this aspect in my records. I have reason to believe that it may have been a forerunner for the proposed TSR2 system. Any details would be most welcome.
 
I'm not sure of the specifics of the Mk 4 roller map but Decca produced roller map equipment for a variety of aircraft in late 1950s/early 1960. Strip map of intended route wound on rollers with a transparent cursor showing aircraft position. Rollers, and thus map, driven at speed derived from groundspeed and lateral position of cursor driven by drift - both from Doppler navigator. Maps had to be specially-prepared for a route. The TSR2 system was more sophisticated, with a transparency of a chart projected onto a screen and a fancy mechanism to wind-on once the next bit of chart was required. Also Doppler-driven.
 
What did the Blue Shadow SLAR in the Canberra B.16 do? The B.16 was a low level strike aircraft, so was the SLAR feeding info into the nav system to make night missions more accurate? A SLAR in 1960 seems more or a recon sensor than something a low level, tactical bomber would need to conduct its bombing missions.
 
A good question. Blue Shadow was a fairly crude navigation aid with low resolution paper output. The B.16s were converted from those B.6s which already had Blue Shadow fitted - which involved a significant re-arrangement of cabin - so that might have been one reason for its retention. I think the B.16 had a doppler navigator so can't imagine Blue Shadow was terribly useful. In theory could produce fixes to correct doppler - but I think read somewhere opinion differed as to how useful/accurate that was.
 
yellowaster said:
A good question. Blue Shadow was a fairly crude navigation aid with low resolution paper output. The B.16s were converted from those B.6s which already had Blue Shadow fitted - which involved a significant re-arrangement of cabin - so that might have been one reason for its retention. I think the B.16 had a doppler navigator so can't imagine Blue Shadow was terribly useful. In theory could produce fixes to correct doppler - but I think read somewhere opinion differed as to how useful/accurate that was.
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From what I can gather in the mid 50s Bomber Command Canberras were using late WW2 style Gee/Gee-H for navigation. Not only were there 4 Gee stations in the UK, but also 2 in northern France and 1 in occupied Germany postwar, so I'd think there was pretty good coverage in the NATO area.

There was no Gee (and therefore Gee-H) in Egypt so Blue Shadow was fitted to the original 25 (of 94) B.6 to make B.6(BS)s in order to improve night navigation to be pathfinder target markers for other Canberras. There's not much info but I've also read that the Blue Shadow isn't much chop at low level, but I suppose the usefulness was enough that when converting B.6 and B.6(BS) into B.15 and B.16 it wasn't worth the cost of replacing or removing it. It appears the B.16 were allocated to the same sqns as the B.15s so my guess is they were still used as pathfinder-target markers.

As an side, in my reading about this I found out that the original Canberra canopy was super sketchy for pilots at low level, so the definitive interdictor B(I).8 had the fighter-style cockpit/canopy to give the pilots a much better view at low level.
 
Rule of cool said:
From what I can gather in the mid 50s Bomber Command Canberras were using late WW2 style Gee/Gee-H for navigation. Not only were there 4 Gee stations in the UK, but also 2 in northern France and 1 in occupied Germany postwar, so I'd think there was pretty good coverage in the NATO area.

There was no Gee (and therefore Gee-H) in Egypt so Blue Shadow was fitted to the original 25 (of 94) B.6 to make B.6(BS)s in order to improve night navigation to be pathfinder target markers for other Canberras. There's not much info but I've also read that the Blue Shadow isn't much chop at low level, but I suppose the usefulness was enough that when converting B.6 and B.6(BS) into B.15 and B.16 it wasn't worth the cost of replacing or removing it. It appears the B.16 were allocated to the same sqns as the B.15s so my guess is they were still used as pathfinder-target markers.

As an side, in my reading about this I found out that the original Canberra canopy was super sketchy for pilots at low level, so the definitive interdictor B(I).8 had the fighter-style cockpit/canopy to give the pilots a much better view at low level.
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Gee and Gee-H were completely independant systems, working on different principles, although some of the ground equipment was designed to be used as either i.e. same equipment could be used as part of a Gee chain or as part of a Gee-H chain. The antenna and indicator in the Canberra was common to both systems as well.
 
yellowaster said:
Gee and Gee-H were completely independant systems, working on different principles, although some of the ground equipment was designed to be used as either i.e. same equipment could be used as part of a Gee chain or as part of a Gee-H chain. The antenna and indicator in the Canberra was common to both systems as well.
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Yes, that's how I understand it. Gee-H was accurate like Oboe (more or less) but unlike Gee.

I've never really thought about navigation apart from the usual interest in the Battle of the Beams, I'd assumed that by the middle of WW2 navigation had been more or less 'solved'. I'm surprised that WW2 Gee-H was being used in the mid 50s, and that it was so crucial to the Canberra force's operations that when it wasn't available in Egypt the RAF had to add SLAR to Canberra B.6s to make up for it.

On Gee-H, I assume the addition of doppler radars like Blue Silk added to what Gee-H provided and made navigation more accurate.
 
I gave an overview of bombing aids/assistance for the V-Force in a two-part article in Aviation Historian (Striving for Accuracy Issues 43 & 44) (I didn't cover Green Satin or Blue Shadow as they were navigational aids).

The theoretical accuracy of Gee-H was 100yd (91m) or less, the desired peacetime maximum error was 250yd (228m). but the average error actually attained was 350yd (320m) in the Canberra in 1952.
The theoretical accuracy of H2S Mk.4 and Mk.9 ground-mapping radars was 500yd (457m),he desired peacetime maximum error was 900yd (822m), but the actual average error achieved in 1952 was 1,100yd (1,005m).
Oboe, Gee-H and LORAN (Long Range Navigation) were only usable at ranges of 400-1,200nm (740-2,200km).

Blue Study was a Gee-H replacement using an UHF ground beacon and an airborne computer linked to the autopilot to enable automatic straight-line bombing runs from high altitudes to 7,000ft (2,130m). The full specification Blue Study (A) was cancelled as it failed to show an appreciable improvement over NBS. The simpler Cat/Mouse system - Blue Study (C/M) - using two beacons was similar to the original Oboe and attained a CEP of 297yd (271m) at 40,000ft (12,200m), but still only had an effective radius of 220nm (400km) so was not used by RAF Canberras (it was used by Indian Canberras).

In 1955 the Air Staff requested a high definition Q-band SLAR and bombing computer for its Red Beard-armed Canberras to provide a blind bombing system beyond Blue Study coverage. The SLAR would be in the bomb bay with the single Red Beard carried externally. No detailed work went ahead due to lack of funding, but its possible Blue Shadow was seen as a cheaper solution.

Red Devil an advanced blind and visual bombing system comprising the Red Setter SLAR, Green Satin, map matching unit, target height unit, 3-axis gyro stabilised platform, visual sighting head, ballistic computer and an Astro-compass for offset aiming for V-bombers but was too ambitious and abandoned.
 
The vibe I'm getting is ever increasing range of beacon type nav systems; Gee, Oboe, Gee-H, LORAN backed by more and more assistance like doppler radar and SLAR to correct the inaccuracies of these sytems.

Presumably INS backed by doppler radar and other gadgets removed the need for beacon type nav systems for nav-attack systems. IIUC the TSR2 was to have an integrated INS and doppler system with the SLAR turning on to provide updates every 100 miles or so, which gets the much desired blind-first-pass attack capability.
 
Rule of cool said:
The vibe I'm getting is ever increasing range of beacon type nav systems; Gee, Oboe, Gee-H, LORAN backed by more and more assistance like doppler radar and SLAR to correct the inaccuracies of these sytems.
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Then there was Blue Sugar - take your own beacon and drop it in enemy territory and hope the local ruffians don't smash it up before you use it.

Yes inertial changed everything, still with SLAR backup for fixing but at least the aircraft was independent of ground facilities.
 
Hood said:
Then there was Blue Sugar - take your own beacon and drop it in enemy territory and hope the local ruffians don't smash it up before you use it.

Yes inertial changed everything, still with SLAR backup for fixing but at least the aircraft was independent of ground facilities.
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Interesting, similar to USAF SAC bombing technique during Vietnam War.

cheers
 

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