SECRET
G.

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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 aircreft at burst time

within extremely close tolerances.

This informetion was needed to

correlate the effects date with the yield of the shot,

Task Group

7.1 had recommended thet 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 instelletion.

In

& letter to General William H. Blanchard, Headquarters, SAC, on 21

October, General Estes recommended thet 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 maintenence, and radar and photo interpretetion 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 Fackler; Lt Colonel Crosby and

Mr. Martin Oberg, Western Electric Field Engineer.

The R=-17 and 0-15

cameras were considered too inaccurate for this project and the MPQ
was believed too delicate to withstand the shot jer.
It was found that SHORAN could be made availeble by SAC and would

be reasonebly accurate, although not necessarily as accurate as Task
Unit 13 might desire.

SHORAN was described es being reliable only

when two complete stations were available at each location, end pro-

vided the survey of ground stations was of the second order.
ARWISHi

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