Aces High Bulletin Board

General Forums => The O' Club => Topic started by: Krusher on July 23, 2002, 02:21:46 PM

Title: Cats eyes
Post by: Krusher on July 23, 2002, 02:21:46 PM

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/2146171.stm

WWII fighter pilot John Cunningham, the first man to shoot down an enemy plane using radar, has died aged 84.

Title: Cats eyes
Post by: Ripsnort on July 23, 2002, 02:54:59 PM

Great story!

Title: Cats eyes
Post by: Pei on July 23, 2002, 03:02:46 PM

That's sad. I was just reading about him last night in Ospreys' Mosquito Fighter/Fightbomber Units 1942-45.

Title: Cats eyes
Post by: midnight Target on July 23, 2002, 04:12:44 PM

Thanks for the link.

Title: Cats eyes
Post by: Sandman on July 23, 2002, 05:58:59 PM

In the Navy, I was an air intercept controller. There was a particular intercept, the nearest collision intercept conversion, that we called a "cats eye."

Never knew why, but my guess is that it was named after this man.

Title: Cats eyes
Post by: whgates3 on July 23, 2002, 10:57:39 PM

about a year ago i read "Night Fighter" by C. F. Rawnsley (John Cunningham's RADAR operator).  
Very good book.  
You get some mean looks if you read it on an airplane, though, as it has a big flaming A/C on the cover

Title: Cats eyes
Post by: hawk220 on July 24, 2002, 01:08:55 PM

great story!  I'd read somewhere that radar was initially developed as a secret weapon, designed to cook LW pilots in their cockpits.. anyone know if that is just war legend? or true.

Title: Cats eyes
Post by: Sandman on July 24, 2002, 02:00:32 PM

H.E. Wimperis, Director of Scientific Research at the Air Ministry, wrote to R.A. Watson-Watt and asked if it would be possible to direct sufficient energy in electromagnetic waves to form a 'death ray'.

Watson-Watt's assistant, A.F. Wilkins, quickly calculated that a death ray was impractical but his figures suggested that reflections of radio pulses from aircraft might be detectable.

SOURCE: http://www.marconicalling.com/museum/html/events/events-i=64-s=0.html