![]() The United States agreed to sponsor research and development of microwave radar-more accurate and less glitchy than long-wave radar-at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. British disclosures included the Whittle turbojet-one of the forerunners of all jet engines-and several hand-made, long-wave airborne radar sets. Unknown to the Americans, the Blenheims were also equipped with then-classified radar to augment ground control guidance.Ī month later, as part of a joint agreement to share military secrets, the British Technical and Scientific Mission arrived in Washington. On cathode ray scopes at ground centers, the American visitors watched electronic signatures of German intruders, and the twin-engine Bristol Blenheim night fighters the controllers sent to intercept them. A string of long-wave radar installations along the British coast pulsed the sky over the North Sea. This story is a selection from the August issue of Air & Space magazine BuyĪ few months before Pavlecka had his secret meeting in Ohio, a contingent of Army Air Corps observers had been sent to get an after-hours view of the Battle of Britain. “The glaring weakness of this was that few of these pilots were able to fly without visual references to the ground.” “It involved a handful of military pilots, trained by civilian airline pilots, who used conventional radio aids and standard flight instruments,” recounts Carroll Smith, destined to become the highest scoring night ace in the Pacific, in American Nightfighter Aces of World War 2 by Andrew Thomas and Warren Thompson. In the United States, where the airspace had never been violated, the ability to fight at night was a low priority. Though England fought back with searchlight-guided Sopwith Camels and anti-aircraft fire, the memory of high explosives raining out of the darkness was unnerving to the British as they learned that German belligerence and warplane production was ramping up again in the 1930s. Gotha biplanes also night-bombed London, inflicting even greater casualties. German Zeppelins, though awkward aerial punching bags by day, hectored England with bombing raids on moonless nights. In the first world war, darkness had been used to cloak airborne weapons. And perhaps most important, that unnamed device. Having endured nightly hammering from German bombers during the Blitz, the Brits had learned that night fighting required an aircraft with special characteristics: a high ceiling to intercept intruders, extended loiter time to circle a defended zone slowly, and the firepower to take down big bombers before they reached their targets. Also, the military may have gotten wind of something: A month earlier, the British Purchasing Commission had quietly approached Northrop with specs for a proposed night fighter for the Royal Air Force. However, established manufacturers-Lockheed, Grumman, Douglas-were already committed beyond their capacity to stocking the nation’s flying arsenal. The Northrop Aircraft Corporation, headquartered in Hawthorne, California, was only a year old, operating principally as a subcontractor for larger aircraft makers, so it seemed an unlikely choice to commission for the development of the world’s first dedicated night fighter. ![]() From the tone of the meeting, Pavlecka concluded that accepting the project wasn’t an option. This “Night Interceptor Pursuit Airplane” included an unnamed device that could “see and distinguish other airplanes” in total darkness. ![]() The engineer was instructed to commit to memory-he could take no notes-specifications for a secret aircraft. Army Air Corps colonel had summoned Pavlecka, Northrop’s chief of research, to a meeting at Wright Field in Ohio. ![]() Vladimir Pavlecka had a message for his boss, Jack Northrop. ![]()
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