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In late 1944 Cooke-Yarborough was sent, as part of
a British party, to the United States to report on the developments made
on the guided weapons project being undertaken by the Americans. This
was more of a data gathering exercise than an evaluation as the British
could see that the war was drawing to a close and wanted to collect the
information on guided weapons in case the Americans became less forthcoming
with their information.
The team consisted of Richards, Coles, Cooke-Yarborough,
Lees, Sudbury and Owen. Cooke-Yarborough was sent due to his knowledge
experience on the V1 rockets and the new V2 rockets, one of which had
fallen in Sweden and was taken to Farnborough. This team was shipped over
to New York. Once in America Cooke-Yarborough was amazed at the non-war
atmosphere that the country had. Once in America the team joined the the
British Air Commission in New York and set about gathering
the required information. Unlike Britain the research and development
of weapons was in the hands of different commercial companies, which meant
a lot of traveling around the country.
War Wearies:
These were bombers with TV guidance systems in the
nose cone of the plane. A pilot would take off in the plane, which was
packed with explosives, and bail out, at which point the plane would be
flown by remote control from another plane using the TV image. Although
the system worked it was not practical enough to be used as an effective
guided weapon, especially under the different European climatic conditions.
A crude infrared system was also developed which worked
by tracing an infrared light source using light sensitive cells and a
diaphragm which made the slight alterations to the missile's direction.
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