NIGHT DETECTOR

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 3, Issue 286, 24 March 1941, Page 5

NIGHT DETECTOR

NEW BRITISH PLANES LOCATING ENEMY CRAFT Military men in Washington recently expressed tlie, belief that the British have developed a way to» equip their warplanes with a detector for locating enemy aircraft in the dark. Ground detectors of that nature have been in use in Britain for some time and well-informed sources here said the statement of Air Chief Marshal Sir Hugh Dowding at Ottawa that the menace of enemy night bombers Avould be greatly reduced sometime this spring, indicated the device had been adapted for installation in Royal Air Force planes. "It's just a repetition of the old military maxim that for every new weapon there is always a defence developed," one official said. "The question is whether the British can develop the defence in time." Sir Hugh Dowding said the necessary equipment for Britain's, defence was beinH completed rapidly and by springtime would remove the whole weight and sting of the Luftwaffe night bombers. Extended Research Made. Both the United States and Britain have been working for years on various types of plane detectors, but War and Navy Department officials have maintained a tight-lipped silence regarding the success or failure of their experiments. Some published accounts of a grounct detector have described it ascapable of accurately locating airplanes 100 miles away—lso miles under favourable conditions. It is said that clouds, fog and noise cannot interfere with it and airplane engines cannot be shielded or pro- 1 tected against it/ The latter, fact led to conjecture in some quarters that the device picks up infra-red rays from the exhausts of airplane engines. Automatic Detection. Military aviators said that if such a device were improved so that it could be installed in fighter planes ; it would be quite possible to synchronise the plane's guns with it and thus make the detection and destruction pf enemy craft almost automatic. If the equipment can be used only in the larger types of planes, such as bombers,, its usefulness would be restricted. Adaption for use in single-seat fighters and pursuit ships, however, tantamount 1.0 the elimination of the factor of darkness and aeriui combat would resolve itself largely into contests between small, speedy fighters—one qualified official said, would be justs like the daylight air battles.