Radar operator

“ Targets caused by inversions aren't rare—in the years that these men had been working with radar they had undoubtedly seen every kind of target, real or false, that radar can detect. They had told the Bolling AFB intelligence officer that the targets they saw were caused by the radar waves' bouncing off a hard, solid object. The Air Force radar operator at Andrews backed them up; so did two veteran airline pilots who saw lights right where the radar showed a UFO to be. ”

“ They flew around for about ten minutes without detecting any targets on their radar. They were making one last pass almost directly over the radar station when the radar operator in the back seat of the F-94 yelled over the interphone that he had a target on his scope. The pilot called ground radar, but by this time both the F-94 and the unidentified target were again too close to the radar station and they couldn’t be picked up. The F-94 closed in until it was within 200 yards of the target ”

“ The radar emitted a pencil-shaped beam which detected and locked on to the aircraft. Using target coordinates provided by the FSCC, the controller programmed the enemy position, ballistic characteristics of the bombs, current winds, and other pertinent data into a computer which was connected to the radar. The computer also received inputs from the radar and, in turn, provided corrections in airspeed, altitude, and heading which the operator passed on to the pilot. ”

“ Many times a weather target will be a fuzzy and indistinct spot on the scope while a real target, an airplane for example, will be bright and sharp. This question of whether a target looked real is the cause of the majority of the arguments about radar-detected UFO’s because it is up to the judgment of the radar operator as to what the target looked like. And whenever human judgment is involved in a decision, there is plenty of room for an argument. ”

“ They indicate that one or more persons are in distress, may no longer be aboard a ship or aircraft, and may not have a receiver available.
SEARCH AND RESCUE RADAR TRANSPONDERS 2820. Operational Characteristics Operating much like a RACON, the Search and Rescue Radar Transponder (SART) is a passive rescue device which, when it senses the pulse from a radar operating in the 9 gHz frequency band, emits a series of pulses in response, which alerts the radar operator that some sort of maritime distress is in progress. ”

“ But spurious echoes, which sometimes deceive the operator, can also appear on the scope. These “anomalous” or abnormal returns may have one of several causes, including the nature of the radar mechanism itself. To help explain this, let us go back to our analogy of the man in the open field. Let us suppose that the man has mechanized his device. To ease the strain on his vocal cords, he has built a megaphone with a record-playing device. The megaphone rotates automatically and sends out a recorded “Hi!” once every twenty seconds, as regular as clockwork. ”

“ This poor inanimate piece of electronic equipment has taken a beating when UFO proof is being offered. "Radar is not subject to the frailties of the human mind," is the outcry of every saucer fan, "and radar has seen UFO's."
Radar is no better than the radar observer and the radar observer has a mind. And where there's a mind there is the same old trouble. If the presentation on the radarscope doesn't look like it has looked for years a UFO is being tracked.
Radar is temperamental. The scope presentation of each radar has certain peculiarities and an operator gets used to seeing these. ”

“ This sweep hand keeps pace with the rotation of the radar antenna as it scans the sky by sending out radio pulses. When they encounter a solid object, they bounce off and return to the set as echoes which show as “blips,” or spots of light, on the radarscope. The operator must interpret these spots and try to identify them as planes, helicopters, balloons, ships, mountains, clouds, birds, storms, hurricanes, or phantom echoes of various kinds. Safe commercial flying depends on the accuracy of147 these identifications, as does the security of the country in periods of international tension. ”

“ Radar is an echo machine that reflects radio waves instead of sound waves. Instead of traveling at the speed of sound, about 1000 feet a second, radio waves travel at the velocity of light, 186,000 miles a second. Successive pulses go out at very short intervals, perhaps one one-thousandth of a second apart, so that each pulse is followed by another just 186 miles behind it. If the operator gets a return from an object that is apparently at a distance of 25 miles, he must sometimes allow for the possibility that he is getting a secondary echo and that the actual distance may be different. ”

“ This visual spotting net would be tied into the existing radar defense net in the Albuquerque-Los Alamos area. At each radar site we proposed that a long focal-length camera be synchronized to the turning radar antenna, so that any time the operator saw a target he could press a button and photograph the portion of the sky exactly where the radar said a UFO was located. These cameras would actually be astronomical telescopes, so that even the smallest light or object could be photographed. ”

“ For thirty seconds the three radar operators compared notes about the target over the intercom, then suddenly the target was gone—and it left all three radarscopes simultaneously.
But the clincher came in the wee hours of the morning, when an ARTC traffic controller called the control tower at Andrews AFB and told the tower operators that ARTC had a target just south of their tower, directly over the Andrews Radio range station. The tower operators looked and there was a “huge fiery-orange sphere” hovering in the sky directly over their range station. ”

“ When the scope records a series of blips, the operator ordinarily assumes that all are returns from a single object. If inversions of temperature or humidity exist in the atmosphere, however, the series of returns may represent several different ground objects rather than a single object in the sky. Since these inversion layers do not remain fixed but move, change, and shimmer, on one sweep the radar may reflect one ground object and on the next sweep some fifteen seconds later may reflect a totally different ground object five or six miles away from the first. ”

“ Also, more experienced radar operators have a chance to examine the scope presentation.
Mixed in with the fact that there are few really qualified observers on this earth is the power of suggestion. About the time someone yells "UFO!" and points, all powers of reasoning come to a screeching halt. ”

“ The MOD has decided publicly disclose at the Ministry's website, upon processing for information security, the data of the radar waves converted to sound that the P-1 patrol aircraft crew heard inflight, as further evidence of the irradiation of the fire-control radar.
In general, fire-control radars continuously direct radar waves to its target in order to obtain the target's location, speed etc. to fire missiles and ammunition with precision. ”

“ Sensor technologies are grouped into four areas: active, passive, imbedded, and processing.
Active sensors: By far, the most important of the energy-emitting sensors is radar. Among the best all-weather capabilities of any type of sensor, the role for and capabilities of radar have steadily increased since the Second World War. Radar systems are used for early warning, air defense, air asset management, air traffic control, naval fleet defense, detection and tracking of moving ground targets, missile targeting, missile terminal guidance, terrain data development, and weather prediction. ”

“ Schematic view of radar targets on successive sweeps of the antenna.
Radar is not a TV camera or a photographic lens. It does not, at least at present, produce a picture of the physical appearance, shape, size, or color of the thing it detects. The scope shows only tiny spots of light on the flat surface of a screen. A pointer something like a clock hand continually sweeps around the dial at a given speed. A complete rotation may take from two to fifteen seconds, depending on the type of the set. ”

“ The radar is the only instrument that can give simultaneous range and bearing information to the same object. (A sonar system can also provide bearing and range information, but sonar bearings are far too inaccurate to use in piloting.) Therefore, with the radar, the navigator can obtain an instantaneous fix from only one NAVAID. This unique fix is shown in Figure 811d. This makes the radar an extremely useful tool for the piloting team. The radar’s characteristics make it much more accurate determining range than determining bearing ”

“ As the vessel or aircraft operating the radar approaches the SART location, the blips change to concentric arcs, and within about a mile of the SART become concentric circles, centered on the SART.
Because the SART actively responds to radar pulses, it also informs its user, with an audible or visual signal, that it is being triggered. This alerts the user in distress that there is an operating radar in the vicinity, whereupon they may send up flares or initiate other actions to indicate their position. ”

“ During the early spring of 1952 reports of radar sightings increased rapidly. Most of them came from the Air Defense Command, but a few came from other agencies. One day, soon after the Alaskan Incident, I got a telephone call from the chief of one of the sections of a civilian experimental radar laboratory in New York State. The people in this lab were working on the development of the latest types of radar. Several times recently, while testing radars, they had detected unidentified targets. To quote my caller, “Some damn odd things are happening that are beginning to worry me. ”

“ Then there was the fact that radar clocked it at 1,400 miles an hour. The F-94 was heading straight for the star Capella, which is low on the horizon and is very brilliant, but what about the radar contracts? Some people said “Weather targets,” but the chances of a weather target’s making a 180-degree turn just as an airplane turns into it, giving a radar lock-on, then changing speed to stay just out of range of the airplane’s radar, and then slowing down when the airplane leaves is as close to nil as you can get. ”

“ Ground-based and airborne intercept equipment available throughout the world is technically sophisticated, rugged, and easy to maintain. Enemy forces must be considered to have a modern intercept capability.
c. Enemy direction-finding capability is comparable to their intercept capability. Various types of mobile, directional antenna systems can be used in a radio direction-finding role. Forward-area mobile elements include a VHF tactical radio direction finder with an Adcock antenna, as well as the pole dish radar direction finder. ”

“ When a new shift took over at the ARTC radar room at National Airport, the air traffic was light so only one man was watching the radarscope. The senior traffic controller and the six other traffic controllers on the shift were out of the room at eleven-forty, when the man watching the radarscope noticed a group of seven targets appear. From their position on the scope he knew that they were just east and a little south of Andrews AFB. In a way the targets looked like a formation of slow airplanes, but no formations were due in the area. ”

“ Course changes to avoid the contact are ineffective; the contact remains on a steady bearing, decreasing range. This phenomenon is particularly apparent for the power cable spanning the Straits of Messina.
1308. Aids to Radar Navigation Radar navigation aids help identify radar targets and increase echo signal strength from otherwise poor radar targets.
Buoys are particularly poor radar targets. Weak, fluctuating echoes received from these targets are easily lost in the sea clutter. To aid in the detection of these targets, radar reflectors, designated corner reflectors, may be used. ”

“ About ten o’clock in the morning, one day a few weeks before, a radar near the base had picked up an unidentified target. It was an odd target in that it came in very fast—about 700 miles per hour—and then slowed down to about 100 miles per hour. The radar showed that it was located northeast of the airfield, over a sparsely settled area.
Unfortunately the radar station didn’t have any height-finding equipment. The operators knew the direction of the target and its distance from the station but they didn’t know its altitude. They reported the target, and two F-86’s were scrambled. ”

“ If the girl heard, she made no sign.
“They’ll circle over the place first, won’t they?” she asked in a matter-of-fact voice.
“That’s what they most generally do,” the sergeant agreed.
“That’s when we’ll get them,” she murmured, as she adjusted her radar set. “They’ve got one-track minds, those Jap pilots have. They circle about in the same track two or three times.”
“That will make it nice,” said the sergeant. “Practically no trouble at all. Shoot ’em down like clay pigeons right out of those thick clouds.” To him one toy balloon shot out of those clouds meant very little just then. ”

“ The Board has therefore advocated every practical assistance to pilots transporting the public. The Board believes that aircraft radar has proved to be such an assistance, particularly in modern high-performance aircraft. While it is impossible to predict precisely the action which would have been taken by the captain had the airborne radar been operable, there is evidence to indicate the likelihood that the area of turbulence could have been avoided through the use of airborne radar. ”