 Most
spectacular perhaps of the scientific developments in which the Company
took part was radar. Beginning with the first radar transmitters ever
commercially produced, equipment worth £10,000,000 was turned
out for the three services, an achievement that resulted directly
from the inter-war research work on high vacuum equipment. Before
the end of 1937, little more than a year from the first request to
provide high power valves, the Company had been entrusted with the
manufacture of the complete transmitters for a chain of twenty 'CH'
stations placed round the coast to give early warning of enemy raiders.
Orders followed for many thousands of transmitters of various types.
A
radiolocation section was set up in 1938 to carry on manufacture
in a new extension to the West works, the first of three radar shops
totalling 125,000 sq. ft. in area. Those who worked there will recall
code names such as ASV airborne detectors of surface vessels. Gee
navigation controllers, the Oboe ground guide to bombing aircraft,
and H2S airborne sets giving the first direct picture of the unseen
earth's surface at night or in cloud. Among parts and accessories
were aerial pedestal units (AUK and AQB) and insulators of Polythene,
an I.C.I. product for which M-V developed the first successful machines
and moulding methods.
Radar
manufacture was controlled by W. Symes, superintendent of the detail
department, with A. C. Main as assistant superintendent. A radio
engineering section was formed in 1939 in charge of A. K. Nuttall,
but for some years technical design originated with the radio section
of the research department under J. M. Dodds; in the early days
Dodds was alone in the works in being entrusted with the secrets
of radar, and he was later awarded the O.B.E. In the 'transmitter'
department T. R. Porter, the chief production engineer, received
the M.B.E.; T. R. Monkhouse and T. Robinson general foremen, R.
Hill a shop steward, and May Reynolds an assembler were awarded
the B.E.M.
Automatic
pilots, which could take over the control of a heavy bomber on a
long run, were made in large quantities, starting some years before
the war with a contract for 3750. 'George', as this ingenious
device was named, was an elaborate form of gyroscope with delicate
discriminating mechanism linked to compressed air controls of the
rudder, elevator and ailerons. It was manufactured in an extension
to the instrument and meter department under G. A. Cheetham, who
later became managing director of Ferguson, Pailin; his chief production
officer, G. E. C. Hill, received an M.B.E.
Gun
control work involved the use of the metadyne. Before the war this
had been developed as a power amplifier having a ratio up to 10,000:1
and giving very rapid response. It enabled large forces to be applied
with great accuracy and extremely small time lag to the power control
of guns and other weapons, and it was soon used to enable anti-aircraft
guns to be operated directly from the predictor, thus ensuring
accurate aiming at fast moving aircraft. By 1939 metadynes were
being made at the Sheffield works for the remote electrical control
of naval
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