[Milsurplus] Radar and such

[CL in NC]

Two of the best documentaries I ever have seen were on the original History Channel decades ago when they still had history.  One was on the X15, the other on the development of RADAR.  These videos I have not seen again and have been unable to find a DVD for them.  The X15 was quite the aircraft.  I learned that it was not a pilot that endured the most G's ever experienced by a human, but an engineer strapped into the X15 who survived the explosion of the 1 million pound thrust engine installed in the craft while it was clamped to the test bed.  It only moved a few inches, but the G forces to move it were off the chart.  NASA forbade the Air Force from going into outer space, passing that arbitrary line that was labelled 'outer space'.  Air Force pilots had a real issue with the formation of NASA. On the X-15's last flight, bets were taken that the pilot, (famous, but have forgotten his name) who was not afraid to thumb his nose at NASA, was going to actually break that limit, but he did not.  He would have been the first man in space back in 50's. An interesting bit of trivia in the RADAR docu, was testing and working the bugs out of the radar while flying just off the east coast of the US and tinkering with the set.  After several fails, the got another glitch and cussed the problem, only to realize it was working and picked up a German U-Boat periscope on the surface of the water.  They had no armament, but flew down to it and threw a wrench at it. The unconvinced ARMY was only convinced about its usefulness when a prototype RADAR was put on and adapted to a motorized gun mount that had a movie camera installed.  As the RADAR followed the aircraft and provided the input signals to the computer (analog mechanical of course)  that controlled the gun mount, the aircraft stayed in the reticle of the camera the entire time.  After installation on a real mount, and used in England, not one V1 ever landed again, every one was shot down if it came in the range of those guns.

Charlie, W4MEC in NC