Radar Love

You May Not Be Aware

Because not everyone is au fait with acronyms, unlike Your Humble Scribe, that 'Radar' is actually an acronym for 'RAdio Direction And Ranging'.  It was one of the assembled technologies that permitted Perfidious Albion to fend off the might of the Luftwaffe in the Second Unpleasantness during the early years.  Hence, we here in the Allotment of Eden love us some radar.  Art!

     Yes yes yes we are jumping tracks like a 33 r.p.m. operating at 78 instead.  What track from 'Agents Of Fortune' is ALWAYS but always associated with Dharma, Bloom et al?  Why none other than 'Don't Fear The Reaper'.  What track, likewise, is always associated with the Netherlands band Golden Earring?  Art!

     Yes, 'Radar Love'.  It became an absolute albatross of a track for them, and I recall Glen Matlock, original bassist with the Sex Pistols, telling Rinus Gerritsen, bass player with the 'Rings, how much he liked that track.  Ol' Rinus turned and walked away, having heard the same tale one hundred thousand times before.

     Out of sheer perversity I am going to play that very same track on Youtube right now.  Ha!

     ANYWAY I have another pop culture reference for you.  Art!

     This is Corporal Walter Eugene O'Reilly, better known as 'Radar', because in the television series 'M.A.S.H.' that was his nickname.  His superpower was knowing everything about everything, courtesy his position as the 4077th's administrative clerk.  These are the blokes who know all the details.

     Enough wibble! for we are now onto the actual Intro, which concerns modern-day radar, and if you're a big fan of Putinpot or The Toxic Tangerine Toad, you may want to skip forward.  BUT I WILL FIND OUT AND TRACK YOU DOWN. Just so you know.  No pressure.  Art!

     This, gentle readers, is s SAAB 340 Airborne Early Warning & Control aircraft.  It was introduced in 1997 and is now regarded as next door to obsolete, which is why the Swedes donated 2 of them to Ukraine, free, gratis and for nothing.  Still, half a loaf is better than none, especially when it's the middle half and you're not being fobbed off with the heel, alth

     ANYWAY that peculiar longitudinal structure is a radar, as established in our title for today.  It enables the 340 to 'see' a lot farther than the smaller radars mounted on jets such as the F-16 or the Su-35.

     Now, this transfer of the 340s was announced in May of 2024, a year ago.  Why am I only mentioning them after 12 months?  Well, because a system of this complexity needs a crew to be trained in how to use it; it's possible Ukes were trained beforehand in Sweden, but even so, once the crew is trained, you then have to integrate it into your air defence network, with a lot of practice, training and deconfliction.  Art!

     More pronouncably known as 'jamming pods'.  

     So, the Ukrainians had a 340 stooging around in their airspace, well back from the front line, but able to see far into Ruffian territory, where it picked up an Su-35, the latest Ruffian fighter-bomber that clocks in at $85 million per.  Art!

     Technically, this jet is far ahead of the venerable F-16 in terms of performance and abilities.  However - a word you knew was coming - it's radar cannot see as far as the 340s.  The Ukes then scrambled an F-16, which deliberately turned it's radar off, making it effectively invisible.  It was then vectored - jargon for 'it was sent' - to an intercept position, where it launched an AMRAAM missile, all of which the Su-35 pilot was blissfully unaware of.  The missile itself only had to turn it's radar-seeker on seconds before impact, all thanks to the 340's guidance.  The first moment Pavel The Pilot knew he was under attack was when his plane blew up and he had to eject.

     The worrying aspect for the Ruffians here is that their jet was shot down inside Mordorvia, by a Ukrainian jet that never left Ukraine.  Art!

     

     What adds another twist to this tale of radar and retribution is that the Ruffians are supposed to have their own AEW & C aircraft, the A-50, which ought to have been up and providing radar coverage for the VDV in Ruffia or bordering Ukraine.  Except they only  had 5 or 6 UPDATE 2 or 3 operational at the start of the Special Idiotic Operation and had been keeping them flying by cannibalising from the remaining 6 or 7 airframes.  Ukraine has shot down and destroyed at least 2 and the suspicion is that the Ruffians have only one operational A-50 left, which they dare not risk losing.  Besides which, if it got sent to cover Ukraine, what would the Finns and the Chinese get up to?  UPDATE they may not have any left!

     Gotta love radar.

Great, I put my shorts on, the clouds roll in.  At least Edna and I enjoyed a sunny walk this morning.

"The War Illustrated Edition 209 22nd June 1945"

We are now up to mid-1942 in the retrospective that TWI is taking in it's middle-page montage, and suffice it to say that the Allies have not been blessed with fortune.  Art!

     It has been revealed that the Dieppe debacle was a result of Lord Louis Mountbatten avoiding official channels in order to mount the operation, thus lumbering it with insufficient naval and air support.  Allied politicians and generals closed ranks to avoid any very-much-due criticism, as the Teutons would have made hay with same.  Mountbatten was, for the rest of his life, reduced to special pleading that Dieppe had been the reason D-Day succeeded.  No, Mountebank, it was not: proper planning and preparation was the reason D-Day succeeded.

"B.P.R.D. The Devil You Know: Messiah"

This was amongst the haul I got last weekend.  Art!

      Frankly, I'm baffled.  Your Humble Scribe has no idea what's going on and the only two characters I recognise are Abe Sapien and Liz Sherman - who can now fly, because of course she can.  I'm guessing that there has been a global apocalyptic event, which isn't explained or made clear.  The writers here assume that anyone picking up this trade paperback will already have read the others and be up to speed.  So Conrad can see he needs to buy even more TPBs as it would be rude not to.  O for the simplicity of 'Lobster Johnson'*.

A Touch Of Culture For You

As you should surely know by now, Conrad is a big fan of classical organ music WHICH IS NOT CREEPY OR SPOOKY thank you very much Hammer films wi

     ANYWAY ANYWAY here is an illo of <checks> Liene Andreta Calnciema playing Bach's 'Tocatta and Fugue' on the organ of Riga Cathedral.  Art!

     That's the capital of Latvia, lest ye be unaware, and the cathedral services a mostly Lutheran congregation, rather than Orthodox as is the case across the border.  Art!

     Cathedral interior.  Art!

     The organ's pipework close up.  There's an awful lot of intricate scrollwork on that assembly, Conrad bets it's the very beggar to keep it dusted.  Plus, you'd have to disassemble the whole lot every ten years or so to give everything a thorough cleaning.  What a chore.  Art!

     This illo is to emphasise the importance of the humble page-turner, because Bach's compositions are complicated, to say the least, and you need pages and pages of music to work through.  The organist doesn't have time or the three hands require to play and turn pages, hence the page-turner, who is adept enough in reading music to know when to smoothly move in and turn the page.

Finally -

I'm only adding this in here to ensure we hit 1,300 words and by the time I finish typing this we shall have done so.  Pip pip!

*  If he saw a bad guy, he shot them.