Shadow Trainer

What is/was a Shadow Trainer please at RAF Silverstone??

Didn't it project silhouettes of various aircraft to aid aircraft recognition? I.e. it was a long hall with a projector at one end and a screen at the other.

Thank you very much a bit like hand puppets.

Yeah something like that. I've got a photo of glider pilots being taught this way at Stoke Orchard. The RAF Instructor is behind them with a black wooden model of an aeroplane on a stick and he's projecting the shadow at various angles onto the wall in front of them.

I can imagine that.

These are the pictures I have placed on my website against Shadow Trainer. The size has to be 100pix in width that is why the picture is so small.

www.atlantikwall.co.uk/atlantikwall/nort...ne05/html/page01.htm

Possibilities from the Synthetic Training Devices book (ADM 1/18969)

R8 Recognition Trainer - Shadowgraph (CGS)
Standard model aircraft is placed between a sheet screen and a point source of illumination. The model can move to-and-fro between the screen and the lamp. A ring is marked on the screen and the position of the model calibrated in ranges according to the sizes of the shadow relative to the ring (STC Paper No.38 ).

R9 Recognition Trainer - Shadowgraph Recognition Box
Standard model aircraft is rotated by a gramophone motor inside a box, the front of which is covered by a semi-transparent screen. A light behind the rotating model casts a shadow on the screen. Model changed from day-to-day. Boxes installed at various points throughout the training centre, or in the Recognition / Intelligence Room.

A Standard Model Aircraft was 1/72 scale.

Graham

Thank you Carnaby, interesting that the models were 1/72 the same as Airfix models I/we used to make.

Shadowgraph Recognition Trainer (presumably an R8 type) being demonstrated in the Free Gunnery Training hangar at Deenethorpe in late 1944:



All the best,
PB

Excellent photo....any idea why he is wearing a headset ?