Bristol Beaufighter in World War II

Bristol Beaufighter in World War II General Specifications: Length:  41  ft., 4  in.Wingspan:  57  ft., 10  in.Height:  15  ft., 10  in.Wing Area:  503  sq. ft.Empty Weight:  15,592  lbs.Max Takeoff Weight:  25,400  lbs.Crew:  2 Performance: Maximum Speed:  320  mphRange:  1,750  milesService Ceiling:  19,000  ft.Power Plant:  Ã‚  2 Ãâ€"  Bristol Hercules  14-cylinder  radial engines, 1,600 hp each Armament: 4 Ãâ€" 20 mm  Hispano Mk III cannon4 Ãâ€" .303 in.  Browning machine guns  (outer starboard wing)2 Ãâ€" .303 in.  machine gun (outer port wing)8 Ãâ€"  RP-3 rockets  or  2Ãâ€" 1,000 lb.  bombs Design and Development In 1938, Bristol Aeroplane Company approached the Air Ministry with a proposal for a twin-engine, cannon-armed heavy fighter based on its Beaufort torpedo bomber which was then entering production.  Intrigued by this offer due to development problems with the Westland Whirlwind, the Air Ministry asked Bristol to pursue design of a new aircraft armed with four cannons.  To make this request official, Specification F.11/37 was issued calling for a twin-engine, two-seat, day/night fighter/ground support aircraft.  It was expected that the design and development process would be expedited as the fighter would utilize many of the Beauforts features. While the Beauforts performance was adequate for a torpedo bomber, Bristol recognized the need for improvement if the aircraft was to serve as a fighter.  As a result, the Beauforts Taurus engines were removed and replaced with the more powerful Hercules model.  Though the Beauforts aft fuselage section, control surfaces, wings, and landing gear were retained, the forward parts of the fuselage were heavily redesigned.  This was due to the need to mount the Hercules engines on longer, more flexible struts which shifted the aircrafts center of gravity.  To rectify this issue, the forward fuselage was shortened.  This proved a simple fix as the Beauforts bomb bay was eliminated as was the bombardiers seat.   Dubbed the Beaufighter, the new aircraft mounted four 20  mm Hispano Mk III cannons in the lower fuselage and six  .303 in. Browning machine guns in the wings.  Due to the location of the landing light, the machines guns were situated with four in the starboard wing and two in the port.  Using a two-man crew, the Beaufighter placed the pilot forward while a navigator/radar operator sat further aft.  Construction of a prototype commenced by using parts from an unfinished Beaufort.  Though it was expected that the prototype could be built quickly, the necessary redesign of the forward fuselage led to delays.  As a result, the first Beaufighter flew on July 17, 1939. Production Pleased with the initial design, the Air Ministry ordered 300 Beaufighters two weeks before the prototypes maiden flight.  Though a bit heavy and slower than hoped, the design was available for production when Britain entered World War II that September.  With the beginning of hostilities, orders for the Beaufighter increased, which led to a shortage of Hercules engines.  As a result, experiments began in February 1940 to equip the aircraft with the Rolls-Royce Merlin.  This proved successful and the techniques employed were used when the Merlin was installed on the Avro Lancaster.  During the course of the war, 5,928 Beaufighters were constructed at plants in Britain and Australia. During its production run, the Beaufighter moved through numerous marks and variants.  These generally saw alterations to the types power plant, armament, and equipment.  Of these, the TF Mark X proved the most numerous at 2,231 built.  Equipped to carry torpedoes in addition to its regular armament, the TF Mk X earned the nickname Torbeau and was also capable of carrying RP-3 rockets.  Other marks were specially-equipped for night fighting or ground attack. Operational History  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Entering service September 1940, the Beaufighter quickly became the Royal Air Forces most effective night fighter.  Though not intended for this role, its arrival coincided with the development of airborne interception radar sets.  Mounted in the Beaufighters large fuselage, this equipment allowed the aircraft to provide a solid defense against German night bombing raids in 1941.  Like the German Messerschmitt Bf 110, the Beaufighter unintentionally remained in the night fighter role for much of the war and was used by both the RAF and US Army Air Forces.  In the RAF, it was later replaced by radar-equipped De Havilland Mosquitoes while the USAAF later supplanted Beaufighter night fighters with the Northrop P-61 Black Widow. Used in all theaters by Allied forces, the Beaufighter quickly proved adept at conducting low-level strike and anti-shipping missions.  As a result, it was widely employed by Coastal Command to attack German and Italian shipping.  Working in concert, Beaufighters would strafe enemy ships with their cannons and guns to suppress anti-aircraft fire while torpedo-equipped aircraft would strike from low altitude.  The aircraft fulfilled a similar role in the Pacific and, while operating in conjunction with American A-20 Bostons and B-25 Mitchells, played a key role in the Battle of the Bismarck Sea in March 1943.  Renowned for its ruggedness and reliability, the Beaufighter remained in use by Allied forces through the end of the war. Retained after the conflict, some RAF Beaufighters saw brief service in the Greek Civil War in 1946 while many were converted for use as target tugs.  The last aircraft left RAF service in 1960.  During the course of its career, the Beaufighter flew in the air forces of numerous countries including Australia, Canada, Israel, Dominican Republic, Norway, Portugal, and South Africa.

Vladimir Zworykin, Father of the Television

Vladimir Zworykin, Father of the Television Vladimir Zworykin (July 30, 1889–July 29, 1982) is often called the father of television, but he never accepted that, stating that he shared credit with many others such as David Sarnoff. Among his 120 patents are two instruments that were critical to the development of television: the iconoscope camera tube and the kinescope picture tube.   Fast Facts: Vladimir Zworykin Known For: Called the Father of Television for his work on the iconoscope camera tube and the kinescope picture tubeBorn: July 30, 1889 in Murom, Russia.Parents: Kosma A. and Elana ZworykinDied: July 29, 1982 in Princeton, New JerseyEducation:  Petrograd Institute of Technology (electrical engineering, 1912), Ph.D, University of Pittsburg 1926Published Works: More than 100 technical papers, five books, 120 patentsAwards: 29 awards, including the National Medal of Science in 1966Spouse(s): Tatania Vasilieff (1916–1951), Katherine Polevitsky (1951–1982)Children: Elaine and Nina, with his first wifeNotable Quote: I hate what theyve done to my child†¦I would never let my own children watch it. (on his feelings about television) Early Life Vladimir Kosma Zworykin was born on July 30, 1889, the youngest of surviving seven (from the original 12) children of Kosma A. and Elana Zworykin of Murom, Russia. The well-to-do merchant family was dependent on Kosmas role as the owner of a wholesale grain business and a successful steamship line. In 1910, Vladimir entered the St. Petersburg Institute of Technology, where he studied electrical engineering under Boris Rosing and saw his first television. Rosing, a professor in charge of laboratory projects, tutored Zworykin and introduced his student to experiments of transmitting pictures by wire. Together they experimented with a very early cathode-ray tube, developed in Germany by Karl Ferdinand Braun. Rosing and Zworykin exhibited a television system in 1910 using a mechanical scanner in the transmitter and the electronic Braun tube in the receiver. After graduating in 1912, Zworykin entered the College de France in Paris, studying x-rays under Paul Langevin, but the studies were interrupted in 1914 with the outbreak of World War I. He then returned to Russia and worked as an officer with the Russian Signal Corps.   Leaving Russia Zworkyin married Tatania Vasilieff on April 17, 1916, and they eventually had two daughters, Nina Zworykin (born 1920) and Elaine Zworykin Knudsen (born 1924). When the Bolshevik Revolution broke out in 1917, Zworykin was working at the Russian Marconi company. Rosing disappeared in the chaos, the Zworykin family home in Murom was seized by revolutionary forces, and Zworykin and his wife fled Russia, making two trips around the world before settling down in the United States in 1919.  He briefly worked as a bookkeeper in the Russian Embassy before joining Westinghouse at East Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 1920. Westinghouse At Westinghouse, he worked on a number of projects from gunnery controls to electronically controlled missiles and automobiles, but his most important were the kinescope picture tube (the cathode-ray tube) in 1923 and then the iconoscope camera tube, a tube for television transmission used in the first cameras in 1924. Zworykin was one of the first to demonstrate a television system with all the features of modern picture tubes. He became a U.S. citizen in 1924, and in 1926 he obtained a PhD from the University of Pittsburgh with a dissertation on a method of greatly improving the sensitization of photocells. On November 18, 1929, at a convention of radio engineers, Zworykin demonstrated a television receiver containing his kinescope and obtained his first patent associated with color television. Radio Corporation of America In 1929, Zworykin was transferred by Westinghouse to work for the Radio Corporation of America (RCA) in Camden, New Jersey, as the new director of the Electronic Research Laboratory and at the invitation of RCAs president, David Sarnoff, a fellow Russian emigre. RCA owned most of Westinghouse at that time and had just bought the C.F. Jenkins Television Company, makers of mechanical television systems, in order to receive their patents. Zworykin made improvements to his iconoscope, and RCA funded his research to the tune of $150,000. The further improvements allegedly used an imaging section which was similar to Philo Farnsworths patented dissector. Patent litigation forced RCA to start paying Farnsworth royalties. 1930s and 1940s By the mid-1930s, Zworykin worked on his own projects and provided leadership for an extensive number of young scientists. He became intrigued by early work on the electron microscope, and he set up a lab and hired Canadian James Hillier, who had built a prototype as a graduate student, to develop one for RCA. During World War II, Zworykin had input into airborne television that was used to guide radio-controlled torpedoes and a device that helped blind people read. His laboratories were tapped to work on stored-program technology for the early computers, and he explored- but didnt have much success with- self-driven cars. In 1947, Sarnoff promoted Zworykin to vice president and technical consultant to the RCA laboratories. Death and Legacy In 1951, Zworykins wife Tatania Vasilieff, from whom he had been separated for better than a decade, divorced him, and he married long-time friend Katherine Polevitsky. He was forced to retire at 65 from RCA in 1954 but continued supporting and developing research, serving as director of the Medical Electronics Center at the Rockefeller Institute in New York. In his lifetime, Zworykin authored more than 100 technical papers, wrote five books, and received 29 awards. Among them was the National Medal of Science- the highest scientific honor in the United States- which President Lyndon Johnson presented to Zworykin in 1966 â€Å"for major contributions to the instruments of science, engineering, and television, and for his stimulation of the applications of engineering to medicine.† In retirement, he was a founder and the first president of the International Federation for Medical and Biological Engineering; he was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 1977. Vladimir Zworykin died on July 29, 1982, one day shy of his 93rd birthday, at the Princeton (New Jersey) Medical Center. Sources Abramson, Albert. Vladimir Zworykin, Pioneer of Television. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1995.Froehlich, Fritz E. and Allen Kent. Vladimir Kosma Zworykin. The Froehlich/Kent Encyclopedia of Telecommunications (Volume 18), p 259–266. New York: Marcel Dekker, Inc., 1990.Magill, Frank N. (ed.). Vladimir Zworykin. The 20th Century O–Z (Volume IX) Dictionary of World Biography. London: Routledge, 1999.Thomas, Robert McG. Jr. Vladimir Zworykin, Television Pioneer, Dies at 92. The New York Times, August 1, 1982.Rajchman, Jan. Vladimir Kosma Zworykin, July 30, 1889- July 29, 1982. National Academy of Sciences Biographical Memoirs 88:369–398 (2006).