Project Cadillac: How the U.S. Navy Invented the Flying Radar Station
[1]
Main Image
Today's radar planes are the direct descendants of Project Cadillac.
Michael Peck [2]
What is that strange-looking aircraft, that looks like an airliner with a giant mushroom perched on top? From that giant mushroom perched high up in the sky, perhaps over Iraq or Syria or the South China Sea, invisible beams of radiation stream in all directions.
Be it America's AWACS [3], Russia's A-50 or China's KJ-2000 [4], flying radar stations have become a fact of life in modern warfare. From their high-altitude vantage point, Airborne Early Warning & Control, or AEW&C, aircraft can peer into places that ground-based radars can't. Utilizing their radar data, they can function as aerial command posts to manage an air battle with a speed and efficiency that 1918 or 1945 air commanders could only dream of.
But the flying radar station actually dates back to World War II, the first conflict to feature ground-based radar guiding fighters to intercept enemy bombers conducting daytime raids. But to detect night bombers cloaked by darkness, radar was soon installed on night fighters, usually twin-engined heavy fighters or converted bombers sprouting insect-like antennae from their noses. Yet these were short-range devices designed to enable an interceptor to detect, stalk and then maneuver into firing position to shoot down a bomber.
Source URL (retrieved on October 23, 2016):
http://nationalinterest.org/blog/project-cadillac-how-the-us-navy-invented-the-flying-radar-18137
