AERIAL SURVEY OF ROCKET RANGE
Received Friday, 10.30 p.m. SYDNEY, Dec. 13. The completion by the R.A.A.F. ot an aerial survey of the propo§ed rocket range in Central Austraiia, involving a photographic coverage oi the area of 45,000 square miles, was announced today hy the Minister ot Air, Mr. Drakeford. Elying at 25,000 feet, an Anstralian-made Lincoln bomber specially equipped for the task, covered a distance equal to twice round the world at the equator. The area photographed had hitherto not been adecLuately surveyed and it was not possible to provide radar or radio navigation aids to asslst the operation. Consequently the operation -was carried out hy using daytime astro fixing whieh entailed waiting for days when both sun and moon were visible. On the project, whieh was referred to as "Operation Sandra", two of the five navigators in the Lincoln had to take a fix on the sun ancl moon every four minutes during the flight to ensure the accuracy of the course.
Permanent link to this item
https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/CHRONL19461214.2.20
Bibliographic details
Chronicle (Levin), 14 December 1946, Page 5
Word Count
164AERIAL SURVEY OF ROCKET RANGE Chronicle (Levin), 14 December 1946, Page 5
Using This Item
NZME is the copyright owner for the Chronicle (Levin). You can reproduce in-copyright material from this newspaper for non-commercial use under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International licence (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0). This newspaper is not available for commercial use without the consent of NZME. For advice on reproduction of out-of-copyright material from this newspaper, please refer to the Copyright guide.
Log in