RAE's Role in Contribution to Chevaline

摘要

I worked on Chevaline at the Royal Aircraft Establishment in Famborough from 1971 until 1980, mainly for Roy Dommett. It was the most fascinating, engaging and stimulating period of my career.rnIn a short paper, and given the restrictions we are under, we cannot hope to do justice to RAE's contribution to Chevaline. Justice will have to wait for the official history. RAE played a central role in the conception of the system and in the project's development and I shall say what I can about it.rnLet me first outline why RAE was so well placed to fulfil the role of RDA for the Penetration Aid Carrier, and many other aspects of the system.rnTable 1 is a list of RAE's areas of expertise relevant to nuclear weapon delivery; I believe it gives a suitable sense of the breadth of RAE's capability. Some of these areas of expertise go back to the immediate post-war era, and many were also of course relevant to, and inherited from, conventional weapons activities at Famborough.