Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2013/01/19

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Subject: [Leica] Cold War Space Radars
From: hlritter at bex.net (Howard Ritter)
Date: Sat, 19 Jan 2013 12:52:11 -0500
References: <67B24A6E-51E8-42C5-81D1-39BD87F0B007@acm.org> <DD27B927-1F94-4007-BECB-1FA60F7CA23D@bex.net> <CAE3QcF4s7To3bM3x4jOWtApgqFZMq4jMxExdbUVMtkRNRbEOMw@mail.gmail.com> <50FA9681.3080104@gmx.de>

Fylingdales indeed! It was one of the three BMEWS sites, the other in 
addition to Moorestown being Clear Air Force Station not far from Fairbanks, 
Alaska.

Fylingdales was a bit different from the other two in that it used three of 
the AN/FPS-49 steerable radar dishes, like the one I pictured, all housed in 
"golf ball" radomes, for both sustained scanning just above the horizon, and 
tracking of interesting objects found by scanning. Thule and Clear used four 
and three, respectively, fixed reflectors, each about half again the size of 
a (U.S.) football field, for scanning, and a single steerable dish for 
tracking. I'll post some photos from Thule presently.

I can still remember speaking on the secure phone from Moorestown with 
blokes at Fylingdales (which was an RAF, not USAF, installation) and hearing 
them calling it "Foilingdyles".

?howard


On Jan 19, 2013, at 7:50 AM, Douglas Sharp <douglas.sharp at gmx.de> wrote:

> Brings back memories of the "Golfballs" on Fylingdales Moor in Yorkshire - 
> always a spectacular sight when driving over the moors road from Pickering 
> to Whitby.
> 
> Sadly replaced by a funny looking pyramid, doesn't look half as sci-fi as 
> the three enormous, very spooky, white golfballs (revealed recently as one 
> of the key targets for Soviet ICBMs)
> 
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAF_Fylingdales
> 
> Cheers


Replies: Reply from imra at iol.ie (Douglas Barry) ([Leica] Cold War Space Radars)
In reply to: Message from kanner at acm.org (Herbert Kanner) ([Leica] Another in the Computer History Museum series)
Message from hlritter at bex.net (Howard Ritter) ([Leica] Cold War Space Radars)
Message from hopsternew at gmail.com (Geoff Hopkinson) ([Leica] Cold War Space Radars)
Message from douglas.sharp at gmx.de (Douglas Sharp) ([Leica] Cold War Space Radars)