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60-735: Red Dean , a rainbow code name, was a large air-to-air missile developed for the Royal Air Force during the 1950s. Originally planned to use an active radar seeker to offer all-aspect performance and true fire-and-forget engagements, the valve-based electronics demanded a missile of prodigious size. Folland Aircraft won the development contract in February 1950 to arm the Gloster Meteor , weighing in at about estimated 600 pounds (270 kg). After some initial progress, chief engineer Teddy Petter seemed uninterested in pursuing

120-474: A few seconds. On F.155 they would be flying continually at supersonic speeds and the airframe was not able to handle the resulting aerodynamic heating. For this new role, Vickers proposed what engineer Ralph Hooper described as "a development of Red Dean only in the same way that P.1103 is a development of the Hunter." This new project was assigned the name "Red Hebe" . As a result of these changes in mission, and

180-454: A harder-hitting and longer-ranged 23 mm (0.91 in) cannon. Additional changes were made as a result of problems encountered during testing related to engine and propeller failures, and equipment changes were made throughout the aircraft's service life. The Tu-4 first flew on 19 May 1947 and was flown by test pilot Nikolai Rybko . Serial production started immediately, and the type would enter large-scale service by 1949. The aircraft

240-461: A high-ranking general to use Soviet-made parachutes. Differences were limited to the aforementioned sheet-metal gauges, the engines, the defensive weapons, the radio (a later model used in lend-lease B-25s was used in place of the radio in the interned B-29s) and the identification friend or foe (IFF) system since the American IFF was obviously unsuitable. The Soviet Shvetsov ASh-73 engine

300-578: A massive 1,330 pounds (600 kg), which made it too heavy for the Javelin. The weapon was then selected to arm the upcoming thin-wing Javelin . Continued problems led Vickers to completely redesign it, abandoning the GEC seeker in favour of a simpler semi-active radar homing . This reduced the weight to 700 pounds (320 kg) and finally to 400 pounds (180 kg) with transistorization . When British intelligence learned of new Soviet supersonic bombers,

360-662: A nuclear weapon, the RDS-3 . The Soviet Air Force operated 847 Tupolev Tu-4 bombers between 1948 and early 1960, initially as long-range bombers. The first regiment to be re-equipped on the Tu-4 was the 185th Guards Aviation Regiment of the 13th Guards Bomber Aviation Division, stationed at Poltava Air Base in the Ukrainian SSR . The training of personnel was carried out in Kazan , at the 890th long-range bomber regiment, turned into

420-411: A partial cone boat tail section. The front of the missile had a similar conical nose cone. Control was through four large rectangular wings arranged near the middle of the fuselage, and four small rectangular control fins just forward of the tail cone. The wings had a span of 4 feet 5 inches (1.35 m) and the tail 3 feet 8 inches (1.12 m). During development the control layout

480-564: A section of the rear fuselage to reduce the length to 14 feet 5 inches (4.39 m) and making both the wings and fins 4 feet (1.2 m) wide. The most notable change was to extend the boat tail section forward, to a point just behind the wings. The first full-scale missiles, of the WTV.2 series, featured a hemispherical nose cone which reduced overall length to 14 feet (4.3 m), and slightly smaller wings and fins at 3 feet 6 inches (1.07 m) span. The lengthy boat tail section

540-901: A training unit. The pilots of the 890th Regiment had extensive experience flying American Boeing B-17 Flying Fortresses and Consolidated B-24 Liberator aircraft. In March 1949 the 52nd Guards Heavy Bomber Aviation Regiment  [ ru ] received Tu-4s; the 121st Guards received Tu-4Rs in 1953. In 1954 the Soviets began phasing out the Tu-4 as Tupolev Tu-16 bombers entered service and, beginning in 1956, to Tupolev Tu-95 bombers. Tu-4s withdrawn from front line units were used for transport duties. On 28 February 1953, Joseph Stalin gave China ten Tu-4 heavy bombers, and in 1960 two additional aircraft configured as navigational trainers arrived in Beijing . 11 Tu-4s were refitted with AI-20K turboprop engines between 1970 and 1973. The last PLAAF Tu-4

600-674: Is a piston-engined Soviet strategic bomber that served the Soviet Air Force from the late 1940s to mid-1960s. The aircraft was a copy of the American Boeing B-29 Superfortress , having been reverse-engineered from seized aircraft that had made emergency landings in the USSR. Toward the end of World War II , the Soviet Union saw the need for a strategic bombing capability similar to that of

660-647: The Canberra and Lightning , but moved to Folland in February 1950 to develop a small and low-cost fighter, which became the Folland Gnat . Folland was already involved in missile development with the RAE in the RTV.2 test vehicle, which began to suffer from delays and cost overruns. At the same time, the seeker from EKCO began to grow in weight. Although the program had progressed to the point of fitting dummy missiles to

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720-554: The General Electric Company (GEC) soon ran into problems, delaying the possible in-service date. This led to it being redirected once again, this time to the F.153 Thin-Wing Javelin that was then under design. Ground launched testing began with 40% scale models known as WTV.1 to test the guidance system, boosted off the ground using three large Demon rocket motors. This led to the full-sized WTV.2, also ground-launched, which included extensive telemetry . By this time,

780-523: The Tupolev Tu-4 . This watered-down specification was given the nick-name "Pink Hawk". This was eventually awarded to Fairey Aviation under the official rainbow code "Blue Sky" and emerged as the Fireflash . Although Pink Hawk was ultimately successful in building a cut-down version of Red Hawk, the original all-aspect requirement remained unfilled. In early 1951 the RAE and Air Ministry felt that

840-547: The Meteor for carriage trials, Petter apparently lost interest in the project and wrote to the RAE that he felt Folland was not the right company to be developing the missile. The Air Staff cancelled the contract in November 1951. Through this period the RAE was also growing concerned about the range of the missiles using solid fuel rockets . They considered a series of designs using ramjet power beginning in 1953. One advantage

900-704: The Meteor, but ground clearance was not great enough and so it was changed instead to two new dedicated night fighters then under development, which became the Gloster Javelin and De Havilland Sea Venom . This initial work led to an official requirement in June 1955, known to the Air Ministry as OR.1105 and the Admiralty as AW.281, for an "active radar homing all-round attack weapon system operating on collision course tactics." The X band guidance radar from

960-568: The Navy's Blue Boar television guided anti-ship bomb, and Red Hawk. Among the early proposals for the Red Hawk design was one from Gloster Aircraft , received in October 1947. This was a large missile in aircraft form, similar to a very small swept wing fighter. The missile would have to be lowered beneath the aircraft on a trapeze before launch in order for the seeker to pick up the signal from

1020-490: The Soviet Union had to be brought into production. Extensive re-engineering had to take place to compensate for the differences, and Soviet official strength margins had to be decreased to avoid further redesign. Despite those challenges, the prototype Tu-4 weighed only 340 kg (750 lb) more than the B-29, a difference of less than 1%. The engineers and suppliers of components were under pressure from Tupolev, Stalin, and

1080-586: The Soviet Union with B-29s under Lend Lease . However, on four occasions during 1944, individual B-29s made emergency landings in Soviet territory and one crashed after the crew bailed out. In accordance with the Soviet–Japanese Neutrality Pact , the Soviets were neutral in the Pacific War and so the bombers were interned and kept by the Soviets. Despite Soviet neutrality, the U.S. demanded

1140-556: The Soviet strategic bomber program. Tu-4s were withdrawn from Soviet service in the 1960s, being replaced by more advanced aircraft including the Tupolev Tu-16 jet bomber (starting in 1954) and the Tupolev Tu-95 turboprop bomber (starting in 1956). By the beginning of the 1960s, the only Tu-4s still operated by the Soviets were used for transport or airborne laboratory purposes. A Tu-4A was the first Soviet aircraft to drop

1200-590: The Thin-Wing Javelin was cancelled in 1956 in favour of Operational Requirement F.155 . Unsuited to these designs, Red Dean was cancelled in June. A new weapon dedicated to this role began in 1955 as Red Hebe . Also developed by Vickers, Red Hebe suffered from the same growth in weight and size and was ultimately cancelled in 1957 along with F.155. By the late World War II era each of the British forces had ongoing missile development programs. Among these

1260-713: The Tu-4 threw the U.S. Air Force into panic since the aircraft possessed sufficient range to attack Chicago or Los Angeles on a one-way mission, and that may have informed the maneuvers and air combat practice conducted by US and British air forces in 1948 involving fleets of B-29s. The tests were conducted by the RAF Central Fighter Establishment and co-operative US B-29 groups and involved demonstration of recommended methods of attack against B-29/Tu 4-type bombers using RAF Gloster Meteor and de Havilland Vampire jet fighters. The Soviets developed four different midair refueling systems to extend

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1320-459: The WRV.4C containing the seeker and the WTV.4E with the proposed proximity fuse . On the first live test flight, the shear pin that held the missile to the rail was noted to be too strong; when the missile motor fired its thrust was enough, even briefly, to cause the aircraft to yaw significantly. On the second flight, the pin was improperly installed and failed to shear at all. The resulting yaw caused

1380-507: The Western Allies. The Soviet VVS air arm had the locally designed Petlyakov Pe-8 four-engined "heavy" in service at the start of the war, but only 93 had been built by the end of the war and the type had become obsolete. The U.S. regularly conducted bombing raids on Japan , from distant Pacific forward bases using B-29 Superfortresses. Joseph Stalin ordered the development of a comparable bomber. The U.S. twice refused to supply

1440-454: The bomber's range, but these were fitted to only a few aircraft, and only a small number of the final design were installed on operational aircraft before the Tu-4 was superseded by the Tu-16 . A total of 847 Tu-4s had been built when production ended in the Soviet Union in 1952, some of which went to China during the later 1950s. Many experimental variants were built and the experience launched

1500-418: The cancellation of the Thin-Wing Javelin which would have carried it, Red Dean was cancelled in June 1956. The original Folland version was intended to be carried one each on the wingtips of the Meteor. It was 15 feet 7 inches (4.75 m) in length and 13 inches (330 mm) in diameter. The rocket motor was centered in the cylindrical fuselage and exited through a nozzle at the extreme rear, within

1560-412: The design and the contract was cancelled in November 1951. In July 1952 it was picked up by Vickers , who had already experimented with a number of large missiles. Their design was too large for Meteor, so it was instead designed for the emerging Gloster Javelin . Problems with the General Electric Company (GEC) X-band seeker led to the missile having to be enlarged several times, eventually reaching

1620-401: The design had grown several times and was now 16 feet 1 inch (4.90 m) long and weighed a massive 1,330 pounds (600 kg). Some of this was due to the enlarged 100 pounds (45 kg) warhead, which was required due to the low accuracy of the seeker. This increase in size and weight demanded a change in the rocket motor, to a 14,000 pounds-force (62,000 N) Falcon. In spite of

1680-456: The design work during the first year, and 105,000 drawings were made. By the end of the second year, the Soviet industry was to produce twenty copies of the aircraft, ready for state acceptance trials. The Soviet Union used the metric system and so sheet aluminium in thicknesses matching the B-29's U.S. customary measurements was unavailable. The corresponding metric-gauge metal was of different thicknesses. Alloys and other materials new to

1740-490: The entire flight, with an accelerometer indicating the end of the rocket firing and then reducing the control power to avoid slowing the missile during the coasting phase by applying large control inputs. Rainbow code During World War II, British intelligence was able to glean details of new German technologies simply by considering their code names. For instance, when they heard of a new system known as Wotan , Reginald Victor Jones asked around and found that Wotan

1800-403: The fighter's radar. The RAE were not impressed and developed their own preferred design, consisting of a bullet-shaped unpowered "dart" that was launched up to speed by drop-off solid fuel rocket motors. Continued study demonstrated the Red Hawk system was simply beyond the state of the art . For a head-on attack, the aircraft would be approaching each other while the missile flew. In order for

1860-770: The four had deicing boots , as would be used on the Tu-4. The fourth B-29 was returned to the US along with its crew with the end of the Soviet-Japanese peace. The Soviets declared war on Japan two days after the atomic bombing of Hiroshima , in accordance with the Yalta Agreement . Stalin told Tupolev to duplicate the Superfortress in as short a time as possible instead of continuing with his own comparable ANT-64/Tu-10. The reverse-engineering effort involved 900 factories and research institutes, which finished

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1920-512: The government to create an exact clone of the original B-29 to facilitate production. Tupolev had to overcome substantial resistance to use equipment that was not only already in production but also sometimes superior to that found on the B-29s. Each alteration and every component made was scrutinized and was subject to a lengthy bureaucratic decision process. Kerber, then Tupolev's deputy, recalled in his memoirs that engineers needed authorization from

1980-422: The jettison system. A second aircraft, WD942, was similarly modified and sent to Woomera awaiting the missiles. Meanwhile, to test the effects of the rocket motor on the wing of the aircraft, a test rig was constructed consisting of a section of a Canberra wing mounted in an A-frame system that could be rotated to change the simulated angle of attack . "Live" testing began in June 1954 with semi-complete designs,

2040-510: The larger motor, range was a very short 4 nautical miles (7.4 km; 4.6 mi). For air testing, Canberra WD956 was delivered to Wisley Airfield near the Vickers plant on 8 August 1951. It was then sent to RAF Hurn for fitting with launch rails. It returned to Wisely and made its first carriage test flight with motor-less WTV.2 missiles in October 1953 and follow-up tests in May 1954 to test

2100-416: The length to 16 feet 1 inch (4.90 m) and reshaped the fins to add mach tips. Internally the layout was somewhat complex. The rocket motor was arranged near the center of the fuselage, aligned with the wings in order to minimize changes in center of gravity as the motor burned. The warhead was just in front of the motor, roughly at the midpoint of the fuselage. To keep it from overheating while

2160-602: The missile projects were suffering from a lack of funding and manpower as many of the projects drew on the same pool of talent. The MoS decided to rationalize development by centralizing it at the Royal Aircraft Establishment (RAE). After much debate, the MoS chose four programs to continue; the Royal Navy 's surface-to-air missile Seaslug , a similar design for the Royal Air Force and British Army ,

2220-428: The new Myasishchev M-52 , which cruised at about Mach 1.2 and had a dash speed around Mach 1.5. The thin-wing Javelin would have significant difficulties dealing with this aircraft and the Air Ministry put all its attention on newer supersonic designs that were being developed as part of Operational Requirement F.155 . Red Dean had been designed for launch from subsonic fighters and would fly supersonically only for

2280-607: The official system, but created to sound like it. The Blue Yeoman radar is an example, an unofficial name created by combining the names of two other projects, Blue Riband and Orange Yeoman . The names were mostly dropped with the end of the Ministry in 1959. Its functions were split between the War Office , the Air Ministry , and the newly created Ministry of Aviation , which was responsible for civil aviation. After

2340-474: The plane to flip over on its back before the missile finally broke free and the aircraft lost almost 20,000 ft altitude while recovering. A delay ensued while a new latching system was developed. A further delay ensued after the aircraft rolled off the runway due to a brake failure on 21 September 1955, and its duties were taken over by WD942, which returned to the UK on 28 September. Complaints were constant about

2400-443: The program. It had to be able to attack from any direction, using an active radar seeker so the fighter did not have to continue the approach after launch. It needed to have a probability of kill against a bomber of at least 50%. The contract for Red Dean was initially won by Folland Aircraft , largely on the basis of Teddy Petter 's mid-1951 contract tender. Petter had a streak of successes at English Electric Aviation , including

2460-543: The reorganization, projects were mostly named with randomly selected codes comprising two letters and three digits, e.g. BL755 , WE.177 . Rainbow codes, or at least names that look like them without being official, have occasionally been used for some modern systems; current examples include the Orange Reaper electronic support measures system and the Blue Vixen radar —the latter most likely so named because it

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2520-547: The return of the bombers, but were refused. Three repairable B-29s were flown to Moscow and delivered to the Tupolev OKB . One B-29 was dismantled, the second was used for flight tests and training, and the third was left as a standard for cross-reference. The aircraft included one Boeing-Wichita –5-BW, two Boeing-Wichita –15-BWs and the wreckage of one Boeing-Renton –1-BN, comprising three different models from two different production lines, at Wichita and Renton. Only one of

2580-438: The rocket fired, air was fed through the fuselage around the warhead casing. Power for the electronics and control fins was supplied by a relatively large De Havilland turboalternator in front of the warhead, powered by compressed air in a number of small bottles arranged around the rocket exhaust tube. Air was led forward, and power back, in channels under the wings, which can be seen in the photograph above. The seeker and fuse

2640-464: The size and weight of the system, especially aimed at GEC whose seeker was heavier than its WWII counterparts. Vickers eventually decided to start a complete redesign, abandoning the GEC seeker in favour of a semi-active system. This led to a new design of late 1955 or early 1956 of "only" 700 pounds (320 kg), but then further simplifications lowered this to a spritely 400 pounds (180 kg). Around this time, British intelligence services learned of

2700-504: The technology had progressed enough to once again take up the development of Red Hawk. This was released as the joint Naval/Air Staff Target 1056 which had the double duty of both a fighter weapon as well as a bomber self-defence weapon. On 18 June 1951, Group Captain Scragg concluded that Red Hawk would not be available for some time, and suggested that it be re-directed as a pure fighter weapon. This led to Operational Requirement 1105, which

2760-504: The title of the 1961 Alistair MacLean Cold War novel The Dark Crusader , even more so in the American edition's title The Black Shrike . Both names were based on Blue Streak (which was mentioned in the novel); the title was of a fictional solid-fueled ICBM which was the object of a covert theft operation at an isolated Fijian test site. Tupolev Tu-4 The Tupolev Tu-4 ( Russian : Туполев Ту-4 ; NATO reporting name : Bull )

2820-433: The weapon to be launched from far enough to keep the fighter outside of the bomber's fire during the missile's flight, the radio energy needed for tracking would demand a very powerful radar or a very large antenna to focus it enough. Neither appeared practical in the near term. In August 1948, the Air Ministry released a simpler specification for a weapon capable of tail-chase approaches against propeller-powered bombers like

2880-542: Was a development of the Wright R-1820 but was not otherwise related to the B-29's Wright R-3350 . The ASh-73 also powered some of Aeroflot 's remaining obsolescent Petlyakov Pe-8 airframes, a much-earlier Soviet four-engined heavy bomber, whose production was curtailed by higher-priority programs. The B-29's remote-controlled gun turrets were redesigned to accommodate the Soviet Nudelman NS-23 ,

2940-508: Was a one-eyed god . Based on this, he guessed it was a radio navigation system using a single radio beam. This proved correct, and the Royal Air Force was able to quickly render it useless through jamming. Wishing to avoid making this sort of mistake, the Ministry of Supply (MoS) initiated a system that would be entirely random and deliberately unrelated to the program in any way, while still being easy to remember. Each rainbow code name

3000-512: Was a replacement for the Blue Fox radar. Several British military-related terms have a similar "colour" format to Rainbow Codes, but are not true examples since they do not refer to classified research projects and/or were adopted long after Rainbow Codes went out of use. Others are entirely unofficial (sometimes humorous) nicknames. These include: An allusion to the Rainbow codes was made in

3060-438: Was at the nose. As it was felt that the vibrations from the rocket motor would produce too much mechanical noise into the radar system, the rocket had been designed to give a short burn time of only two seconds in order to minimize the time before the control system could activate. In testing, it was found that the problem was nowhere near as bad as expected. This led to modifications of the autopilot to allow it to control through

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3120-428: Was changed, adding a triangular fillet to the front of the main wings and extending the tail controls to 4 feet 8 inches (1.42 m) and adding what the UK referred to as "mach tips", but is more widely known today as a cropped delta , intended to keep the rear section of the controls out of the shock waves generated by their leading edge. The initial design at Vickers was similar, but shortened by removing

3180-535: Was constructed from a randomly selected colour, plus an (often appropriate) noun taken from a list, for example: While most colour and noun combinations were meaningless, some combinations produced real names, although quite unrelated to the project they designated. For example, "Black Maria" is also a nickname for a police van and the "Red Duster" is a nickname for the Red Ensign , the flag flown by British merchant ships . Some code names were not assigned through

3240-544: Was first displayed during a flyover on 3 August 1947 at the Tushino Aviation Day parade . At first three aircraft flew over and the Western observers assumed that they were merely the three B-29 bombers which they knew had been diverted to the Soviet Union during World War II. Minutes later a fourth aircraft appeared, and the observers realized the Soviets had reverse-engineered the B-29. Entry into service of

3300-790: Was given the name "Red Dean". This was intended for use by two-seat fighters, notably the F.153 thin-wing Javelin which was then under development, but also the De Havilland Sea Vixen and the single-seat Supermarine Swift . Although not mentioned specifically, illustrations from this era show the missile mounted on the Gloster Meteor as well. The OR called for a missile that could be carried in pairs by any aircraft of 10,000 pounds (4,500 kg) and up, without seriously affecting its performance. The primary targets were bombers and fighter bombers flying up to Mach 0.95 and maximum altitudes as high as 60,000 ft. Fighters were suitable targets, if possible, but only if it did not delay

3360-594: Was made to continue with a pure-rocket. In July 1952, Vickers was asked to provide design studies for the Red Dean requirement. They received a development contract in March 1953. At the time, the design was to weigh 600 pounds (270 kg) and be powered by four Buzzard motors from the Propellant and Explosives Research and Manufacturing Establishment . It was initially intended to arm the night fighter versions of

3420-400: Was removed, returning to a design more similar to the final Folland versions. The final prototype versions, starting with WTV.4, was extended in length to 15 feet (4.6 m) and featured new wings and fins with swept-back leading edges and swept-forward trailing edges. This layout was largely retained the for final pre-production model, WTV.5, which added an extended ogive nose cone that took

3480-513: Was retired in 1988. In 1969, China developed its first airborne early warning aircraft based on the Tu-4 airframe. The project was named KJ-1 and mounted a Type 843 rotodome above the fuselage of the aircraft. However, due to clutter noise the KJ-1 failed to meet the PLAAF's requirements. The project was canceled in 1979 although further projects were proposed based on Tu-4 platform. The airframe

3540-402: Was that the missile engines could be used for additional aircraft thrust during takeoff or high-speed dash, and then topped off with fuel from the fighter's fuel tanks. Unfortunately, they found that when the weapon would have to be launched subsonically it would require a small rocket to get it up to the ramjet's ignition speed of Mach 1.3, adding 50 pounds (23 kg) to the design. The decision

3600-521: Was the January 1945 Air Staff Operational Requirement 1056 for an air-to-air missile intended as an anti-bomber weapon. OR.1056 called for a weapon able to attack from any angle using either radar or infrared homing , the radar version using the signals from the AI Mk. IX radar being installed at that time. This project was assigned the Ministry of Supply (MoS) rainbow code "Red Hawk". By 1947 all of

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