omega tau science & engineering podcast

Guest: Mike Milinkovich, Brian Jeffrey, Richard Embry, Bernd Ulmann    
Host: Markus Voelter    Shownoter: Jochen Spalding

In this episode we look back at (aspects of) the North American Air Defense system in the cold war. In particular, we look at the distant early warning line(s), the F-106 interceptor and the SAGE computer system. For DEW, we talk with Mike Milinkovich and Brian Jeffrey who have both worked on the DEW line; Brian also maintains a great website on DEW. For the F-106, we talk with Richard Embry who has flown the interceptor. And for SAGE, we speak with Bernd Ulmann, who has written a very detailed book on SAGE’s underlying AN/FSQ-7 computer system. Bernd has also been a previous guest on Episode 159 on analog computers.

The episode ends with some music from Arjen Lucassen’s new Ayreon Album, The Source. You might remember that Arjen was a guest on Episode 142, and I really love his stuff. The song is called The Day that the World Breaks Down and, together with several other songs of the album, is available on Youtube.

Here are a couple of videos by Brian: Brian’s visit to Hall Beach, 50 years later, the DYE3 Station in Greenland and the The BMEWS system.

Finally, here is some info about the “Skyking” Emergency Action Messages: Skyking Radio Blog, defconwarningsystem.com.

Mike: Introduction 00:03:19

Mike Milinkovich | Early-warning radar | Distant Early Warning Line (DEW-Line) | Mid-Canada Line | Pinetree Line | Photos: The DEW Pinetree Line | Locations of all DEWLine Sites in Canada, Alaska & Greenland | Ryerson Institute of Technology Toronto | Bell Canada | Cold War | Sputnik 1 | North American Aerospace Defense Command | Duck And Cover (1951) Bert The Turtle | John Diefenbaker | Ionospheric scatter | Tropospheric scatter | UHF / VHF / HF Radar | Doppler Radar

Mike: Workspaces 00:16:37

Arctic char | Lake Trout | Speckled trout

Mike: Operation stories 00:30:57

Boeing B-52 Stratofortress | Identification friend or foe (IFF) | Cuban Missile Crisis | North Warning System

Brian: Introduction 00:46:20

Brian Jeffrey | DewLine | Adventures from the Coldest Part of the Cold War | The DEWLine | Mid-Canada Line | Pinetree Line

Brian: Work at the DEW-Line 00:48:50

North American Aerospace Defense Command | North American Aerospace Defense Command | Air traffic control radar beacon system | Boeing B-52 Stratofortress | Doppler Radar | Identification friend or foe | AN/FPS-30 | Tropospheric scatter | Teleprinter (Teletype) | Official NORAD Santa Tracker | CRT (Cathode ray tube) | Vacuum tube | FPS Radar Systems | Photos: The DEW Pinetree Line | Strategic Air Command | Fail-Safe (1964) | North Warning System | ATR (aircraft manufacturer) | Douglas DC-4 | Arctic char | Douglas DC-3 | Convair F-106 Delta Dart | Sage (Semi-Automatic Ground Environment) | Duck And Cover (1951) Bert The Turtle

Richard: Introduction 01:42:34

Lockheed T-33 | Convair F-106 Delta Wing | General Dynamics F-16 (AWACS - Airborne early warning and control)  | Dew Line: Distant Early Warning, the miracle of America's first line of defense

Richard: The F-106 01:43:44

Convair F-102 Delta Dagger | Pratt & Whitney J57 | Pratt & Whitney J75 | McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II | Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird | F-106 Speed Record | McDonnell Douglas F-15 Eagle | AIM-7 Sparrow | AIM-120 AMRAAM

Richard: Role of the interceptor 01:52:34

Distant Early Warning Line | Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-25 | Electronic counter-countermeasure | Aerospace Defense Command | North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) | Sage | Back-Up Interceptor Control (BUIC) | Area Control Center

Richard: Weapons 02:03:08

AIM-4 Falcon | Beam riding | Infrared homing | HIMARS | AIR-2 Genie | G-Suit | Afterburner | Aerial refueling | Richard: Exercises | OmegaTau Podcast "Chasing Bears with the Phantom" with former RAF pilot Nick Anderson | Boeing B-52 Stratofortress | Wing loading | Flap | Elmendorf Air Force Base

Richard: Dicks time as a controller and some last questions 02:28:00

McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II | List of DEW Line Sites | Light gun | Stabilizer | INS (Inertial navigation system) | FlightSafety International Inc.

Bernd: Introduction 02:44:27

Bernd Ulmann | AN/FSQ-7 Combat Direction Central | Whirlwind I | The Computer Museum, Boston (Bernds Book "AN/FSQ-7 - the computer that shaped the Cold War")

Bernd: SAGE 02:45:42

SAGE (Semi-Automatic Ground Environment) | NORAD (North American Aerospace Defense Command) (MIT - Massachusetts Institute of Technology)  | MIT Lincoln Laboratory (MIT Libraries - Project Whirlwind Reports (OmegaTau Podcast 159 – "Analog Computers" with Bernd Ulmann)  | Vacuum tube | Air Defense Direction Center | Bell Telephone Company | Burroughs AN/FST-2 Coordinate Data Transmitting Set | Teletype | Magnetic drum system | Crossbar switch | Light gun | WarGames (1983) | Light pen | Oscilloscope | Grease pencil

Bernd: The computer! 03:10:42

Wirlwind 2 | Semiconductor diods | Transistor | Core memory | IBM | Jay Wright Forrester | Ken Olsen | Digital Equipment Corporation | IBM 650 | Interrupt | Snapshot (computer storage) | Computer cluster

Bernd: How was this thing programmed 03:21:27

Assembly language | Compiler | Subroutine | Recursion (computer science) | Stack (abstract data type) | Instruction set | Reduced instruction set computing | Complex instruction set computing | Cray XD1 | Processor register | Fortran | Waterfall model (Paper: Herbert D Benington - "Production of Large Computer Programs")  | Agile software development

Bernd: So, was it useful? 03:28:57

Intercontinental ballistic missile | Air traffic control | Back-Up Interceptor Control | Joint Surveillance System | C (programming language) | Ada (programming language) | Documents Library bitsavers.org | Sage documents bitsavers.org