Ad: This forum contains affiliate links to products on Amazon and eBay. More information in Terms and rules
I didn't even know lasers existed before the 1960's.
Doug;Hello fellow pilots and aircraft aficionados -
This is my first posting as I'm out to gather information about a solution that was integrated into the wing of the P-38 during WWII.
Late in the war the story starts with the request of the tower traffic controllers in the Guam and secluded smaller aircraft installations in that area to develop a solution for halting and thus stopping these rouge nightly enemy intrusions. Seems that often at night, there were Japanese zero pilots who were thwarting the US installations, airbases in the pacific theaters by preforming touch & go maneuvers on our airbase. On our own runways no less!
So the story goes from the company where I used to work of whom invented a solution that allowed our aircraft to be identified during the final line up to the runway. It was the product that my company started with, the invention of an infrared wing mounted laser that would identify itself to the tower by viewing the invisible light source. Apparently it worked well enough and thus the trap was set to catch a few zeros playing cat & dog at night. The company that invented the technology was Lackmann Electro Optics, Jim Lackmann, the inventor specifically.
What I'm attempting to discover is a publication, and reference to substantiate this. To be offered up to a group of military aircraft veterans who are eager to be consulted on in the form of a "on the air quiz" for use during an amateur radio meeting (net) over shortwave radio who meet each day on 14.290 Mhz USB. At 3PM (GMT), 10AM CST. The group is known as "The Airforces Flyers Club Net".
Any information on how the airfield staff stopped the Japanese zeros from disrespecting the tower controllers by preforming their touch & go night time maneuvers would be greatly appreciated.
The developed 1 meter folded cavity IR Laser was later re-invented into a new medical device called a "surgical laser" Used to cut tissue and cauterize at the same time.
Thumbs up from an ole B-52 Crew Chief-
Doug
73
WB1E
As per another thread, laser beams are just what you dont need to be looking at when coming into land. Infra Red is different, below the visible spectrum. Below infra red you go into micro waves then radio waves. Above ultra violet you go into ionising radiation. Electromagnetic spectrum - WikipediaLaser as i understand it is way beyond some dude in a shack fencing off some Zeros. There might have been a clever light system aka Royal navy carriers but beamed laser light seems too much.
No binoculars with filters will be able to see IR, you needed an image converter tube back in those days.There were several IR devices used on aircraft during WWII for IFF purposes. I do not know the names of the systems, but Bomber Command used one variant over Germany that allowed the bombers to recognize the Mosquito night fighters so they would know not to shoot at them. There was also a version created for night time ops on the British carriers, and subsequently a similar system adopted by the USN for carrier night fighter ops. None of the systems used lasers, only somewhat focused 'landing light' arrangements at the most. Basically the gunners and carrier (or tower?) personnel would have low power monoculars/binoculars with IR filters that allowed them to see the IR light source on the aircraft.
If the IP wavelength is too long to be seen by the human eye, no filter will make it visible. Wratten gel filters made by Kodak have been around for a long time but they do not make IR visible.An infra red light source can be viewed using an infra red "pass", or viewing filter. These were available to Allied forces as a "Wratten" filter from Kodak (USA) and Kodak Ltd in the UK, and were still in use up to at least the early 1990's. I last saw them in the Kodak (staff) catalogue before I left the company in November, 1991.
Such a filter was fitted to, for example, the AGLT gun turrets on later Lancasters, in order that the detection system linked to the gunsight could identify IR emissions from the "Z" equipment (IR lamps) in the nose of other Lancaster aircraft.
Infra red use was relatively common in the later part of WW2, particularly in Europe, with such items as the German IR sniper scope and IR lamp, and the "Vampir" system on Panther tanks, for example, as well as IR systems and binoculars on both Allied and Luftwaffe night fighters.
Even in the 1980s, IR lamps were still used on, as an example, the British "Chieftain" tank, when the driver and commander, at least, would use IR viewing goggles.
It is most probable that the equipment mentioned in the original post was IR, and not laser.
Very doubtful; those are so insensitive that they would be useless in that application.Could they have been using the 1940s equivalent of a transmissive IR sensor card? Or possibly a split-path optical scope with a reflective IR sensor card?