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I'd read that the TAG's primary job was to find the carrier when the aircraft was outside the range of the radio beacon, i.e. beyond the horizon. Presumably the pilots of Sea Hurricanes, Martlets and Seafires (and their USN cousins flying F3Fs, F4Fs, etc.) were equipped and trained to use the RDF kit.Exactly the reason the FAA wanted 2 seaters. The rear chappie was a TAG (Telegraphist Air Gunner) seaman not a navigator officer and his job was to operate this kit to allow the carrier to be found even in bad North Atlantic weather.
Thank you for the updated link.
This is an interesting area.
I read an account of a Hohtenweil radar equipped Junkers Ju 290 mission over the Bay of Biscay (must have been late 43 or early 1944). It was actually an article about the chronometers on board the Ju 290 for accurate navigation.
There the radar operator of the Ju 290 describes spotting RN carriers and seeing the movement of the aircraft leaving the deck.
He notes that the knew they were safe because the fighters couldn't fly more than 80km from the aircraft carriers and all they had to do was keep that distance.
Presumably the fighters, I think martlets?, were limited in some way to that range, or so the Germans had been told. Larger aircraft with an navigator observer might have better equipment able to home greater distances and actually navigate by plotting and celestial rather than just homing.
These carriers gave the Allied shipping complete protection against a potential attack by the limited German multi engine aircraft.
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Another interesting area is the use of radio homing rescue becons. The historian Fritz Trenkle mentions the Luftwaffe had something.
80km was well inside Type 279 or 281 radar range. If the RN carrier's radar could see the Ju290 then it could also see their own fighters (and their IFF) and use GCI to direct the fighters to attack and destroy the Ju290, and then vector the fighter back to the carrier. The Type 72 homing beacon was designed, pre-radar as a method of homing aircraft back to the carrier, but once reliable long range AW radar became available, the Type 72 (and the USN ZB beacon which was also used by the RN) became less important.
The use of 279 radar (a 7.5m radar of modest bearing accuracy, even when combined with IFF transponder for range extension (rather than relying on a miniscule reflection) still requires a voice link. I would think it would be reasonably reliable but not totally dependable and requires a lot of radio traffic and human intervention when large numbers of aircraft are involved. Yes workable but it will have its operational problems.
On a technical point: the beacons being written about above are not homing beacons. They broadcast the compass heading the beam is pointing to at the time the aircraft is within the beam so the pilot merely has to fly a reciprocal heading to get to the carrier. They don't require a direction finding loop aerial. There were a number of similar systems in use. In fact the Germans operated a over the horizon version called sonnenstrahl (sun beam) which 'talked' verbally the current heading relative to the beam into any ordinary radio. It was so useful the allies used it and when the Germans encoded it the allies bombed the station until the Germans unencoded it again. Another system used by night fighters "Bernhard/Bernhardine" printed the relative heading on ticker tape.
I digress.
As far as intercepting the Ju 290, the crew felt safe with the radar operators stating "we knew they couldn't venture too far from the aircraft carrier".
Since the Ju 290 had a radar capable of detecting any interceptors launched from an aircraft carrier it would merely be a matter of diving to 500m to get below the radar horizin or turning tail
In retrospect I would say what would happen is this. If interceptors were despatched the Ju 290 radar would detect them on its own radar. With the Interceptors moving at 600kmh/372mph and the bomber at 400kmh/248mph (worst case) the Ju 290 would be out of range of the type 279. Alternatively a dive.