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Red Hebe was a large
active radar homing Active radar homing (ARH) is a missile guidance method in which a missile contains a radar transceiver (in contrast to semi-active radar homing, which uses only a receiver) and the electronics necessary for it to find and track its target au ...
air-to-air missile The newest and the oldest member of Rafael's Python family of AAM for comparisons, Python-5 (displayed lower-front) and Shafrir-1 (upper-back) An air-to-air missile (AAM) is a missile fired from an aircraft for the purpose of destroying ...
developed by
Vickers Vickers was a British engineering company that existed from 1828 until 1999. It was formed in Sheffield as a steel foundry by Edward Vickers and his father-in-law, and soon became famous for casting church bells. The company went public in ...
for the
Royal Air Force The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the United Kingdom's air and space force. It was formed towards the end of the First World War on 1 April 1918, becoming the first independent air force in the world, by regrouping the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) an ...
's
Operational Requirement F.155 Operational Requirement F.155 was a specification issued by the British Ministry of Supply on 15 January 1955 for an interceptor aircraft to defend the United Kingdom from Soviet high-flying nuclear-armed supersonic bombers. Discussion about ...
interceptor aircraft An interceptor aircraft, or simply interceptor, is a type of fighter aircraft designed specifically for the defensive interception role against an attacking enemy aircraft, particularly bombers and reconnaissance aircraft. Aircraft that are ...
. It was a development of the earlier
Red Dean Red Dean, a rainbow code name, was a large air-to-air missile developed for the Royal Air Force during the 1950s. Originally planned to use an active radar seeker to offer all-aspect performance and true fire-and-forget engagements, the valv ...
, which was not suitable for launch by the new
supersonic Supersonic speed is the speed of an object that exceeds the speed of sound (Mach 1). For objects traveling in dry air of a temperature of 20 °C (68 °F) at sea level, this speed is approximately . Speeds greater than five times ...
aircraft. Before progressing much beyond advanced design studies, F.155 was cancelled in the aftermath of the
1957 Defence White Paper The 1957 White Paper on Defence (Cmnd. 124) was a British white paper issued in March 1957 setting forth the perceived future of the British military. It had profound effects on all aspects of the defence industry but probably the most affected w ...
which moved Britain's attention from
strategic bomber A strategic bomber is a medium- to long-range penetration bomber aircraft designed to drop large amounts of air-to-ground weaponry onto a distant target for the purposes of debilitating the enemy's capacity to wage war. Unlike tactical bomber ...
s to
ballistic missile A ballistic missile is a type of missile that uses projectile motion to deliver warheads on a target. These weapons are guided only during relatively brief periods—most of the flight is unpowered. Short-range ballistic missiles stay within ...
s. With no other suitable platform, Red Hebe was cancelled as well.


History


Red Dean

By the late
World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...
era each of the British forces had ongoing missile development programmes. Among these was the January 1945 Air Staff Operational Requirement 1056 for an
air-to-air missile The newest and the oldest member of Rafael's Python family of AAM for comparisons, Python-5 (displayed lower-front) and Shafrir-1 (upper-back) An air-to-air missile (AAM) is a missile fired from an aircraft for the purpose of destroying ...
intended as an anti-bomber weapon. OR.1056 called for a weapon able to attack from any angle, an "all-aspect" design, using either
radar Radar is a detection system that uses radio waves to determine the distance ('' ranging''), angle, and radial velocity of objects relative to the site. It can be used to detect aircraft, ships, spacecraft, guided missiles, motor vehicles, w ...
or
infrared homing Infrared homing is a passive weapon guidance system which uses the infrared (IR) light emission from a target to track and follow it seamlessly. Missiles which use infrared seeking are often referred to as "heat-seekers" since infrared is ra ...
, the radar version using the signals from the
AI Mk. IX radar Radar, Airborne Interception, Mark VIII, or AI Mk. VIII for short, was the first operational microwave-frequency Airborne Interception radar, air-to-air radar. It was used by Royal Air Force night fighters from late 1941 until the end of World War ...
being used at that time. This project was assigned the
Ministry of Supply The Ministry of Supply (MoS) was a department of the UK government formed in 1939 to co-ordinate the supply of equipment to all three British armed forces, headed by the Minister of Supply. A separate ministry, however, was responsible for air ...
(MoS)
rainbow code The Rainbow Codes were a series of code names used to disguise the nature of various British military research projects. They were mainly used by the Ministry of Supply from the end of the Second World War until 1958, when the ministry was brok ...
"Red Hawk". It soon became clear that Red Hawk was beyond the
state of the art The state of the art (sometimes cutting edge or leading edge) refers to the highest level of general development, as of a device, technique, or scientific field achieved at a particular time. However, in some contexts it can also refer to a level ...
and an interim design was proposed, nicknamed "Pink Hawk". This dropped the all-aspect requirement and reduced it to tail-chase attacks, which were much easier to guide with existing systems. Accepted with the official name "Blue Sky", it entered service in 1956 as
Fireflash Fireflash was the United Kingdom's first air-to-air guided missile to see service with the Royal Air Force. Constructed by Fairey Aviation, the missile utilised radar beam riding guidance. Fireflash had relatively limited performance and requi ...
. Long before Fireflash flew, in 1951 the
Air Ministry The Air Ministry was a department of the Government of the United Kingdom with the responsibility of managing the affairs of the Royal Air Force, that existed from 1918 to 1964. It was under the political authority of the Secretary of State ...
concluded that electronics was progressing fast enough to reconsider the all-aspect concept, and issued yet another design under the name "Red Dean", calling for a weapon with
active radar homing Active radar homing (ARH) is a missile guidance method in which a missile contains a radar transceiver (in contrast to semi-active radar homing, which uses only a receiver) and the electronics necessary for it to find and track its target au ...
. Using active homing meant the missile could be used by any fighter, as it was not linked to the signals from the fighter's own radar - it could even be used by
day fighter A day fighter is a fighter aircraft equipped only to fight during the day. More specifically, it refers to a multi-purpose aircraft that does not include equipment for fighting at night (such as a radar and specialized avionics), although it is so ...
s without any radar assistance. However, this also meant the missile had to carry what was essentially a miniaturized version of an Airborne Interception radar, which generally weighted hundreds of pounds, and would additionally need a
power supply A power supply is an electrical device that supplies electric power to an electrical load. The main purpose of a power supply is to convert electric current from a source to the correct voltage, current, and frequency to power the load. As a ...
capable of producing radar transmissions of sufficient power. Initially taken up by
Folland Aircraft Folland Aircraft was a British aircraft manufacturing company which was active between 1937 and 1963. History British Marine Aircraft Limited was formed in February 1936 to produce Sikorsky S-42-A flying boats under licence in the UK. The ...
in 1951, chief designer
Teddy Petter William Edward Willoughby "Teddy" Petter (8 August 1908, Highgate in Middlesex – 1 May 1968, Béruges) was a British aircraft designer. He is noted for Westland aircraft, Westland's wartime aeroplanes, the English Electric Canberra, Canberra, ...
eventually lost interest in the project and it was taken up by
Vickers Vickers was a British engineering company that existed from 1828 until 1999. It was formed in Sheffield as a steel foundry by Edward Vickers and his father-in-law, and soon became famous for casting church bells. The company went public in ...
the next year. Problems with the seeker led to the missile undergoing constant weight growth, eventually reaching , making it too heavy to fly on most aircraft of the era. It was then targeted for the P.376 "thin-wing' Javelin which would enter service in the late 1950s. Weight problems with the seeker continued, and in 1955
General Electric Company The General Electric Company (GEC) was a major British industrial conglomerate involved in consumer and defence electronics, communications, and engineering. The company was founded in 1886, was Britain's largest private employer with over 250 ...
(GEC) proposed a new seeker based on
transistor upright=1.4, gate (G), body (B), source (S) and drain (D) terminals. The gate is separated from the body by an insulating layer (pink). A transistor is a semiconductor device used to Electronic amplifier, amplify or electronic switch, switch ...
s, which were just emerging. This would reduce the seeker weight from to . This could be further reduced to if the system used
semi-active radar homing Semi-active radar homing (SARH) is a common type of missile guidance system, perhaps the most common type for longer-range air-to-air and surface-to-air missile systems. The name refers to the fact that the missile itself is only a passive det ...
(SARH), as this dramatically reduced the power requirements. The result is sometimes referred to as Red Dean Mk. 1.


New design

In 1955, the Air Ministry learned of the
Tupolev Tu-22 The Tupolev Tu-22 ( NATO reporting name: Blinder) was the first supersonic bomber to enter production in the Soviet Union. Manufactured by Tupolev, the Tu-22 entered service with the Soviet military in the 1960s. The aircraft was a disappoint ...
supersonic Supersonic speed is the speed of an object that exceeds the speed of sound (Mach 1). For objects traveling in dry air of a temperature of 20 °C (68 °F) at sea level, this speed is approximately . Speeds greater than five times ...
bomber and concluded that bombers flying at Mach 2 would be the next threat to contend with. They realized that even the mildly-supersonic thin-wing Javelin would be unable to deal with this threat effectively, and canceled further development. In place of the Javelin, the Air Ministry proposed their future interceptor needs would be met by faster supersonic designs being considered as part of
Operational Requirement F.155 Operational Requirement F.155 was a specification issued by the British Ministry of Supply on 15 January 1955 for an interceptor aircraft to defend the United Kingdom from Soviet high-flying nuclear-armed supersonic bombers. Discussion about ...
. Red Dean had been designed for carriage by subsonic aircraft and would only fly for a short time at supersonic speeds after it was launched. On these new aircraft, they would spend long times at supersonic speeds and then get even faster after launch. The materials used for Red Dean were not designed to handle the heat loads from the
skin friction Skin friction drag is a type of aerodynamic or hydrodynamic drag, which is resistant force exerted on an object moving in a fluid. Skin friction drag is caused by the viscosity of fluids and is developed from laminar drag to turbulent drag as a f ...
at these speeds, and would not be usable on these aircraft. Accordingly, when Vickers heard of the changes in the aircraft program, they proposed a new missile of stainless steel given the name "Red Hebe". Red Hebe was similar to the later Red Dean concepts with transistorized seekers. Nevertheless,
Ralph Hooper Ralph Spenser Hooper, OBE, FREng, FRAeS (30 January 1926 – 12 December 2022) was an English aeronautical engineer, recognised mostly for his work on the Hawker Siddeley Harrier, specifically in relation to the marriage between the Pegasus eng ...
described it as "a development of Red Dean only in the same way that P.1103 is a development of the Hunter." The idea of moving to SARH was rejected as that would require modifications to the AI radar to allow it to produce a continuous signal during tracking, which would not be easily added to the
conical scanning Conical scanning is a system used in early radar units to improve their accuracy, as well as making it easier to steer the antenna properly to point at a target. Conical scanning is similar in concept to the earlier lobe switching concept used ...
arrangement. The small available room in the nose for the radar antenna led to low resolution and thus the need for a large warhead to counteract the low accuracy of the weapon. As a result of the steel airframe, high required speed, and a huge warhead, Red Hebe emerged as a system with roughly the same weight as Red Dean at even with the lighter electronics. Worse, it was even larger, at long and reached when fitted with aerodynamic fairings intended to reduce drag when being flown on aircraft at Mach 2.5. It was also quite large in diameter at , although this may have been due to the desire to optionally fit a small
nuclear warhead A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission (fission bomb) or a combination of fission and fusion reactions ( thermonuclear bomb), producing a nuclear explosion. Both bom ...
. Some documentation refers to a "British RP.3", RP.3 being the UK name for the US-developed
AIR-2 Genie The Douglas AIR-2 Genie (previous designation MB-1) was an unguided air-to-air rocket with a 1.5 kt W25 nuclear warhead. It was deployed by the United States Air Force (USAF 1957–1985) and Canada (Royal Canadian Air Force 1965–68, Air C ...
unguided nuclear rocket. There is speculation that the warhead would be the "Purple Passion" device intended for landmine use. The new weapon was considered as questionable as Red Dean before it. A significant criticism came from Squadron Leader Poole of the Operational Requirements branch of the Air Ministry. He was sent on a tour of the US to examine their missile programs and returned a report that described the US systems as being much simpler and better developed than their UK counterparts. He described Sidewinder as having less performance than the UK's
Blue Vesta The de Havilland Firestreak is a British first-generation, passive infrared homing (heat seeking) air-to-air missile. It was developed by de Havilland Propellers (later Hawker Siddeley) in the early 1950s, entering service in 1957. It was the fir ...
"but much simpler and now in use", while stating Red Hebe was "...still in the piston era" compared to
Sparrow Sparrow may refer to: Birds * Old World sparrows, family Passeridae * New World sparrows, family Passerellidae * two species in the Passerine family Estrildidae: ** Java sparrow ** Timor sparrow * Hedge sparrow, also known as the dunnock or hedg ...
. He concluded that the US got "more for their money at less than half the weight" and that "Red Hebe will fade out in a few months since
t is T, or t, is the twentieth letter in the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''tee'' (pronounced ), plural ''tees''. It is der ...
in a different technical age." There is some indication that Red Hebe was slated to be canceled in any event; during the studies for the Blue Steel there was some concern that
English Electric N.º UIC: 9094 110 1449-3 (Takargo Rail) The English Electric Company Limited (EE) was a British industrial manufacturer formed after the Armistice of 11 November 1918, armistice of World War I by amalgamating five businesses which, during t ...
was already overstretched and consideration was given to handing the project to Vickers, as it was assumed they would have little to work on. This was during the period when Red Dean and Red Hebe were still ongoing. Additionally, the Director of Guided Weapons at the Ministry of Supply, John Clemow, held a low opinion of the Vickers team.


Vickers Small Weapon

With the weight of the missile limiting it to only one aircraft design, Vickers once again began a complete redesign to introduce a smaller and lighter weapon. This emerged as the Vickers Small Weapon, of roughly length and . This made it only slightly larger and heavier than Sparrow, but with an improved seeker. This smaller size reduced performance to the point where it was considered suitable only for "warm" wars where the absolute destruction of the target was not as important as it would be in a European hot war.


Cancellation

The
1957 Defence White Paper The 1957 White Paper on Defence (Cmnd. 124) was a British white paper issued in March 1957 setting forth the perceived future of the British military. It had profound effects on all aspects of the defence industry but probably the most affected w ...
prepared by
Duncan Sandys Edwin Duncan Sandys, Baron Duncan-Sandys (; 24 January 1908 – 26 November 1987), was a British politician and minister in successive Conservative governments in the 1950s and 1960s. He was a son-in-law of Winston Churchill and played a key r ...
considered the ongoing changes in the strategic outlook. Among its conclusions was that the strategic bombing role would switch from aircraft to
ballistic missile A ballistic missile is a type of missile that uses projectile motion to deliver warheads on a target. These weapons are guided only during relatively brief periods—most of the flight is unpowered. Short-range ballistic missiles stay within ...
s by the mid to late 1960s. At the time it was believed that any mission against the UK would be strategic in nature and would use nuclear weapons, and there seemed to be no mission that could not be carried out by sufficiently powerful warheads making up for any lack of accuracy in placement by missiles. In this environment, it was unlikely that shooting down enemy bombers would have any effect on the outcome – even if a bomber-based attack were made, missiles would be sure to follow and the end result would be basically the same. Sandys identified a period, between 1957 and the mid-1960s in which the bomber remained the primary vehicle of attack and anti-aircraft weapons would still be needed. However, he felt the imminent arrival of the Bloodhound surface-to-air missile would fill this requirement. The Air Staff convinced him that near-term threats like the Tupolev Tu-22 were outside the capability of the Javelin and would arrive before Bloodhound. Sandys relented and agreed to allow the
English Electric Lightning The English Electric Lightning is a British fighter aircraft that served as an interceptor during the 1960s, the 1970s and into the late 1980s. It was capable of a top speed of above Mach 2. The Lightning was designed, developed, and manufa ...
and Red Top missile to continue development to fill this role, cancelling the
Blue Envoy Blue Envoy (a Rainbow Code name) was a British project to develop a ramjet-powered surface-to-air missile. It was tasked with countering supersonic bomber aircraft launching stand-off missiles, and thus had to have very long range and high-speed ...
long-range missile and OR.155 as they would all arrive outside this time frame. Red Hebe no longer had a launch aircraft and was also cancelled. John Clemow, the Vickers critic, personally signed the cancellation.


Notes


References


Citations


Bibliography

* * * * {{UKmissiles Abandoned military projects of the United Kingdom Cold War missiles of the United Kingdom Vickers