RAF V-Bomber Bases in the UK

See post 4 here. Very interesting. ILS Localiser transferred to a buried cable for around the last two miles to improve accuracy.

www.pprune.org/tech-log/240962-history-l...cedure-autoland.html

Mmmm....could have done with that for the Vulcan approach to Heathrow incident!

Indeed. Heathrow's ILS at that time was basic, ie equivalent to today's Cat 1, so GCA had to be used when the conditions were really poor. It is possible that Vulcan's were not yet equipped with ILS, so the crew were unable to monitor the approach, especially the glideslope.

Interesting and hadn't come across that, though 'they' were experimenting with similar ground loop systems in the 1930s. The technology was easier than radio systems then, but the need to dig up a long length of land was never appealing. Paul recently introduced me to Oakington's BILS system.

Did some TNA research and found that in the late 1940s the Air Ministry decided to invest in the 'British Instrument Landing System'. At the time Bomber Command in particular were replying on the WWII American SCS-51 beam landing system, and we felt we needed one of our own in view of the 'V Bomber' programme. Development took place and a number of BILS were installed - particularly in respect of supporting Canberra operations.

During the initial discussions the Air Ministry were pushed over whether BILS would have a 'back-beam' or not. The old SBA and SCS-51 did have back beams and it was generally felt that they were a bit of a nuisance. The BILS team mentioned that removing the back-beam without degrading the main beam was not easy; the AM said 'No Back Beam'.

After several installations it was decided to abandon BILS. There is an interesting memo in the TNA file from the BILS developers which accuses the AM over their decision to drop the project. The reason given by the Ministry for abandoning BILS was 'It doesn't have a back-beam.'

I dont know about the RAF today but certainly in my time(70-01) PAR/GCA was the preferred system. AFAIK Brize was the only unit which had ILS on all its runways, and Northolt didnt get ILS until after the Learjet overran the runway.

The reason given by the Ministry for abandoning BILS was 'It doesn't have a back-beam.'

mmm... my guess would be they discovered the cost and whether there was really a pressing requirement for it.

It's unusual for the whole of the UK to be complelety socked in at the same time and there would have been plenty of suitably equipped diversions.

Also the ILS installation itself is only one component of a full "blind landing" system. Even though the RAF may accept a different level of safety to a commercial operation descent below 200' or so without the whole autopilot/rad alt kit isn`t really an option, especially for a single pilot aircraft. Bearing in mind that all aircraft types and most squadron pilots could hand fly a PAR or ILS to 200ft limits anyway.

I suspect that fitting the automatics across a fleet (of possibly different marks) would have been a complex and costly undertaking - not to mention the other bombers in service at the time.

Then there would have been the question of airfield lighting, low vis procedures, crew training, simulators etc etc..

And not every RAF aircraft has/had ILS, the Harrier and AFAIK the Sea Harrier didnt have it.

Just noticed that this thread is about ILS/autoland at V bomber bases. Wittering was a V bomber base, its never had ILS!!!

AiXAdmin;88551 wrote:

mmm... my guess would be they discovered the cost and whether there was really a pressing requirement for it.

I've just had a look at AIR20/8817 - Landing Approach Aids c.1952, which I part photographed.

A few snippets:

Also under development at the time of BILS (an RAE project) was:

British GCA, which was STC's PAR coupled with Cossor's SRE (Surveillance Radar Element) This system would work in conjunction with CR (automatic) D/F

The report in 1952 stated that STC's PAR suffered from inadequate range, unreliability and very complex to service.

In competition with British GCA was the American CPN-4, priced at $333,000 per installation. In comparison, British GCA was described as 'expensive'.

Then there was the EKCO low cost GCA, developed privately for Southend Airport, and described as 'promising'.

For CPN-4 see:

www.radarpages.co.uk/oral/jdiamond/jdiamond.htm

Here are a couple of shots of hydrant fuel installations on V-Bomber bases:

[IMG]/community/113450=10454-AHL Lincoln 029 - AiX.jpg[/img]
[IMG]/community/113450=10455-AHL Lincoln 030 - AiX.jpg[/img]

Now, a couple of questions:

Does anyone have any close-up pics of the installations?

Have all these installations been removed or do they still lurk on some far-flung 'H' dispersal?