AUSTRALIANS’ FEAT

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20602, 1 November 1941, Page 6

AUSTRALIANS’ FEAT

RANGE-FINDER BUILT NO BLUEPRINTS USED SYDNEY, Sept. 24. Starting from scratch, with neither drawings nor designs, the Department of Natural Philosophy at Melbourne University in six months has succeeded in producing a height and range finder capable of fixing the position of an enemy aeroplane six miles up. Revealing this, the Minister for Munitions (Senator Mcßride) said that Dr. L. H. Martin, in association with two research graduates, Messrs. D. J. Medley and J. W. Blarney, and chief mechanic, H. A. Waters, undertook the problem at the request of the Optical Munitions Panel. Production of this instrument in Australia was a big triumph for scientists. When Professor T. H. Laby, chairman of the Optical Munitions Panel agreed to undertake the work, it was generally assumed that if the range-finder was completed in 12 months it would be a highly creditable achievement. Actually complete in every detail, it has been made and tested wifhin six months of the day when the process of dismantling was begun. In the absence of blue prints, Dr. Martin and his colleagues had to dismantle an instrument sent from England. Before the construction of the prototype, hundreds of drawings of its many intricate parts were necessary. “It will now bo possible,” slated Senator Mcßride, “to turn out at the rate of one a week instruments which, in effect, are almost infallible mechanical calculators, the margin of error under satisfactory conditions being no more than 300 ft. at a height of six miles.”