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27
AIRCRAFT LOCATION FOR POSITIONING
Another oft-studied problem during the pre-operational days of
CASTLE concerned the selection of a device that would pinpoint the
exact geographical location of the effects aircraft at burst time
within extremely close tolerances.
This informetion was needed to
correlate the effects data with the yield of the shot.
Task Group
7.1 had recommended that SHORAN be placed on several islands to ob-
tain the fix, but General Estes felt that the information gained from
SHORAN would not completely justify the expense of installation,
In
é letter to General William H. Blenchard, Headquarters, SAC, on 21
October, General Estes recommended that this problem be studied at a
—
conference to be held at SAC Headquarters some time between 2 and 14
November.
This conference was to be attended by highly qualified
SHORAN people, a qualified SHORAN operator, a man skilled in ground
station positioning and maintenance, and radar and photo interpretation personnel,
The conference was held at SAC Headquarters on 11 November and
was attended by General Estes; Colonel Kesling; Colonel Ray M. Hawley,
Director of Materiel, TG 7.4; Colonel Feckler; Lt Colonel Crosby and
Mr. Martin Oberg, Western Electric Field Engineer.
The Rel? and 0-15
cameras were considered too inaccurate for this project and the MPQ
was believed too delicate to withstand the shot jar.
It was found that SHORAN could be made availeble by SAC and would
be reasonably accurate, although not necesserily es accurate as Task
Unit 13 might desire.
SHORAN was described es being reliable cnly
when two complete stations were available at each location, exd provided the survey of ground stations was of the second order.
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