RIGHT International, 27 July 1967
The Fleet Air Arm's Rough Diamonds aerobatic team, provided by 738 Sqn, RNAS Brawdy, and
flying Hunter FGA.IIs, is seen here over the local countryside of Pembrokeshire. The leader is
the squadron CO, Lt Cdr Christopher Comins
NADGE Design Progressing
NADGECO,
the six-nation consortium
formed to build NATO's £100 million
air-defence warning system extending
from Norway to Turkey, held a two-day
meeting at its central project office in
Feltham on July 6-7. It was the first
general progress meeting since the consortium became fully effective six
months ago. The meeting was to report
progress made on the NADGE project.
Although security prevents anything
in the nature of an official report being
issued, all the visible signs at Feltham
suggest that the hard, initial phase of
getting an operational centre going and
of bringing a top international staff
together has been smoothly worked out.
Nadgeco House, a four-storey building
conveniently near London Heathrow Airport, has taken administrative shape and
purpose since Flight first visited it
(Flight, March 2). Engineers from Britain,
France, Italy, Holland, Germany and
USA are at work there.
By the end of the year Nadgeco will
have completed the basic system design.
Next year it will start testing, leading
up to actual installation work. By then,
Mr Charles Curtis, Nadgeco president,
forecasts a peak staff at Feltham of 340.
Mr Curtis points out that NADGE
represents only approximately 20 per
cent of an already existing network of
radar, data-handling and supporting
equipment already in existence and paid
for out of national defence budgets or
with NATO infra-structure funds.
It is, however, a vital 20 per cent.
Consisting primarily of improved radars,
computers and electronic data transmission facilities, it represents far more
than just another dose of the same
medicine. It lifts NATO's air-defence
arrangements out of the early jet class
and places them firmly in the supersonic
age.
Britain, although providing the headquarters for Nadgeco, is not included in
the NADGE programme because the
control and reporting arrangements she
has already made unilaterally are well
up to NADGE standards.
In addition, the UK does not form
part of any of the three continental airdefence areas—North, Centre and South
—but, for purely geographic and
strategic reasons, comprises another airdefence region, Air Defence UK. All this
might make the UK look like odd man
out. But in practice her network is completely interlocked with NADGE. As a
contributor to the NADGE budget,
moreover, the UK is getting its share of
the production contracts involved.
The apparent contradiction of French
participation in a project whose keynote
is "integration" makes it relevant to spell
out what the word implies in the air
defence context. Pushed to its logical
conclusion, it means the kind of situa-
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tion that could exist in, say. Northern
Germany, where you might find a German computer getting its data from a
Danish radar, controlled by a Belgian or
an Englishman and in its turn controlling the flight of an American pilot. In
the whole intricate process of radar datagathering and transmission the elements
in France will be as thoroughly integrated
into NADGE as those of her allies. But,
at the point where reporting ends and
the control of retaliatory devices begins,
integration for France reaches a full
stop. French fighter units and missile
batteries remain firmly under French
control. While a consistent pattern of
all-out integration obviously represents
the ideal condition for air defence, it
seems unlikely that the partial nonintegration of a country not situated in
the front line represents more than a
relative disadvantage.
Has NADGE any part to play in
peacetime? One of its principal functions
will be military air traffic control, chiefly
from a training exerci.se point of view.
Some governments are already making
use of existing equipment and have
indicated they may buy more display
consoles for additional air traffic control.
Some of the firms involved in Eurocontrol are NADGE contractors. Telefunken is taking part in a test site in
France and Marconi may be playing a
part in the next stage of Eurocontrol.
The problem of air traffic control is that
of identification and correlation of flight
data—something that the NADGE
system is well provided for.
Malaysia's First Jets Arriving
THE FIRST THREE of the RMAF's 20
CL-41 Tutor light jet trainer/attack aircraft, to be called Tebuan (Wasp) in
RMAF service, will arrive in Malaysia
by the end of the month by sea. The
next three will be flight delivered and
the remaining 14 will be shipped by
sea within the next few months. All will
be based at an airfield in Kuantan.
Eastern Malaya.
Between November and next March
the RMAF will also receive by sea the
ten Sikorsky S-61A-4 helicopters it has
on order.
javelin FAW.9Rs of 60 Sqn, RAF, are now detached to Kai Tak, Hong Kong, as we reported last
week. This recent photograph shows the javelins at Hong Kong, where they are supported by
fortnightly crew rotation from RAF Tengah, Singapore, the unit's home base