MAY STOP ATOM BOMBERS

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 70, Issue 108, 20 February 1950, Page 6

MAY STOP ATOM BOMBERS

ELECTRONIC “BRAIN” Guidocl missiles which could be used for intercepting atom bombers are in an advanced state of development. During recent exercises in America it was found that jet fighters were not very effective in disposing of the most modern long-range bombers at heights above 3,000 ft, says the “Daily Telegraph.” Pilots found manoeuvrability of their aircraft was reduced at such heights. They also required about. 27 minutes to gain positions to attack bombers approaching at 300 rq.p.h. The possible alternative, a rocket missile of the typo described by Mr J. Carlton-Ward in a lecture sponsored by the National Air Council and the Library of Congress in America, is discussed in the new R.A.F. Quarterly Journal. This journal is edited by Group Captain A. H. Stradling (retd.), assisted by an Air Ministry advisory committee ,and published by Gale and Polden Ltd., Aldershot (3s Gd).

Easier Than Fighter The missile would climb much faster than any piloted fighter. When it reached the point where it could see the enemy with its own radar eye it would cut. itself off from ground control and start its “electronic brain” working. This would solve a complicated mathematical equation taking into acepunt the relative speeds and directions of the bomber and missile. By actuating a “set of muscles,” or “servo-mechanisms,” in the missile it would then enable the missile to intercept the bomber and to blow itself up. with the bomber, at the point of interception. • “This missile is not an imaginary device,” the article says. “It is near its final stage of development, and it has accomplished separately each one of the operations. It now remains for it to do them all co-ordinately. This accomplishment will solve the problem of interception, at least for a while.

“Counter-measures will undoubtedly be developed: our brain reels at the speed at which the air age carries us along.”