RADAR FOR N.Z. AIRFIELDS

Press, Volume XC, Issue 27401, 14 July 1954, Page 14

RADAR FOR N.Z. AIRFIELDS

ENGLISH SYSTEM UNDER TEST PURCHASE OF SETS HELD LIKELY New Zealand is likely to buy five or six Decca 424 airfield control radar sets for use at airports throughout the country, according to Flight Lieutenant F. E. Brimecombe, a Royal Air Force radar expert at present on loan to the Decca organisation, who left for Australia by DC-6 airliner yesterday morning, after demonstrating one of the sets to civil aviation and air force authorities at the Royal New Zealand Air Force station at Ohakea. The sets cost about £9OOO each when installed in control towers, but they may also be mobile. The equipment alone is worth about £5500.

Sets of this new English system have been in production for about a year. They have advantages over the American ground control approach system. They can be operated by only one man, and at £9OOO the cost is only a'fraction of that of the American equipment, which is worth about £200,000. The set for trial in New Zealand arrived at Auckland in the Imperial Star about two and a half months ago. After being mounted on a truck, it was taken to Ohakea for testing. Three hundred and fifty approaches have been been made with the set during the last six weeks.

Vampire jet fighters of the Royal New Zealand Air Force, National Airways Dakotas, and Bristol Freighters have been brought in to land by the system. The United States Air Force Globemaster, three 829 bombers, and a Skymaster which recently visited New Zealand on a goodwill mission, also used set. Use in N.A.T.O. Countries The Decca system is reported to be already in wide use overseas. The Royal Air Force has 15 sets, and other North Atlantic Treaty countries, including'Norway and Sweden, are receiving them. According to Flight Lieutenant Brimecombe, the equipment has been responsible for saving one of Britain’s new Valiant bombers. The sets can pick up aircraft on their radar screens while they are still 25 miles distant from the airfield.AVhen an aircraft is eight or nine miles’away, the operator of the set begins to “talk” the pilot into the field. This proces: takes an average of about three minutes, and the aircraft is guided to within about half a minute’s flyin?, from the touch-down. At one time, the set is able to cope with six to eight approaching aircraft. The Decca sets have other uses besides bringing in aircraft. In Europe they have been used to marshal trains, ana at airports they have been used to track missing passengers and locate aircraft that have become lost—perhaps in fog—after actually landing safely. They have also been used in the handling of harbour traffic. N.Z. Operators Trained Flight Lieutenant Brimecombe has trained two Royal New Zealand Air Force traffic controllers to operate the new set at Ohakea, and it is now being used by them. If the New Zealand authorities buy the sets —and Flight Lieutenant Brimecombe hopes they will—he expects to return to New Zealand shortly to train other operators. He said that plans for a new control tower at Ohakea allowed space f®r installation of a set. Flight- lieutenant Brimecombe has been on his present job for about three and a half months. He was a pilot in the Royal Air Force during the Second World War, and did a tour of duty on radar jamming over Germany after transferring to radar air traffic control in 1943. He left Harewood yesterday to go to the Royal Australian Air Force station at Laverton, near Melbourne, for further demonstrations of the Decca set.