ROCKET MISSILE TESTED

Press, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 25160, 16 April 1947, Page 7

ROCKET MISSILE TESTED

DEVELOPMENT IN BRITAIN

(Rec. 7 p.m.) LONDON, April 14. A British pilotless radio-controlled rocket missile, which has been given the code name “Stooge,” and which was secretly developed in the last 18 months, has completed successful trials, says the Australian Associated Press.

The development of the rocket, which in effect is a radio-controlled version of the German V2, was considered in the final stages of the war in an effort to counter Japanese suicide bomber tactics. The Directorate of Guided Projectiles in the Ministry of Supply, after Japan had capitulated, requested the Fairey Aviation Company to continue work on a research basis.

Fairey Aviation Company officials to-day disclosed details of the Stooge, and demonstrated how the projectile could be fully controlled by radio from a joystick on the ground to which the projectile instantaneously responds. The Stooge, with four rockets, each of 751 b thrust, can attain a speed far in excess of 500 miles an hour. The four booster rockets used for take-offs in the tests gave, two seconds after firing, a speed of 267 miles an hour. The booster rockets are automatically discarded shortly after the take-off. The Stooge has great military significance.

Cold Weather in Sydney.— Winter moved into Sydney this morning, with a temperature at 5.25 am. of 51.2 degrees, the coldest recorded since November. The lowest temperature ever recorded in Sydney was 44.6 degrees in 1864. Snow was falling to-day on the main range at Kosciusko and at isolated points in the alps.—Sydney, April 15.