yosimitesam
Airman 1st Class
Below are images of a 2-page article from 1945 Naval Aviation News ("Restricted" classification). It describes a "radar training" device that is essentially a simulator. They created an exact scale (topographically) model of the Tokyo bay area. This was immersed in a water tank and a quartz crystal was used to send ultrasonic pulses (like electromagnetic pulses in actual radar) over the model in the manner of true radar. The trainee would then "fly" the radar source (quartz crystal) to get into a proper approach track to the target. (Sound travels much faster and better in water and that's why the terrain model was submerged.) The article states that it could mimic the radar returns of several models of radar. This simulator would closely mimic actual radar returns as seen on a scope in an aircraft. Such things as terrain shadowing due to undulating topography would be shown realistically. This simulator is very clever in design and it amazes me how forward thinking it was. Radar training was difficult during the war and required flying trainees in aircraft for practice. This device allowed the students to actually "see" what they would on a combat mission to Japan. Interestingly, this device was probably more useful for B-29 pilots in night bombing missions but was published in a Navy periodical. (Note that the editors didn't catch the errors in the image captions on the left on the second page.) I left the images large so that the text could be read, especially the photo captions.