EKCO was involved with the design and manufacture of airborne radar systems for military and civil use since 1939, where the emphasis during the war was obviously on Military radars for the bomber fleet.
After the war, the company built on their experience and developed a civilian weather radar system, which was first installed in a civil aircraft in 1949.
In the 1950's, there was continuous development and progress through the E38, E120 and E160 series of equipments.
Bristol Britannia Radar Equipment
Believed to be E38 system
Photograph Courtesy of Southend-on-Sea Museum Service
Click on photograph for Bristol Britannia at Kemble
By 1963, the company was able to launch the E190 and E290 systems, which embodied the results of their many years' experience and enabled the company to offer a range of weather radars to suit not only for the world's leading airlines but also for the operators of feeder line and executive aircraft.
By 1965, the EKCO sales brochure was able to boast that 'EKCO Weather Radar Systems are now used by over 30 major operators, including national and international airlines throughout the world'. The range of lightweight transistorised units forms a flexible building brick system from which a very wide range of weather radar installations can be formed to meet specific requirements.
At that time, the basic weather radar system offered to customers included a scanner, a transmitter/receiver, and an indicator unit (what we would call a VDU today). In addition to its primary role of turbulent cloud detection, customers were offered a Ground mapping option, which could be used to assist navigation as well as a unit (Drift indicator unit), which measured drift angle using Doppler techniques (also useful for navigation).
Various types and sizes of scanners were available to suit particular aircraft, and alternative indicator units and a range of ancillary units facilitated the tailoring of a complete system to any required degree of customer refinement.
One of the big selling points of all EKCO radars was their lightweight and compact dimensions, which allowed the inclusion of such features as twin indicators or duplicate systems with minimum weight and space penalties. In fact the E190 system, when it was launched was the lightest weather radar system available with a 180 mile range and was specifically designed to be lighter than the competing 'Collins System', which was winning business on the B707 at that time.
EKCO were quick to see the advantages of transistorisation and by the early 1960's valves had all but disappeared. Transistors were used for all circuit functions other than in the microwave system and in a few positions where their characteristics were unsuitable.
The greatly reduced power consumption which resulted from this philosophy led to low unit-operating temperatures with resultant savings in weight and an improvement in the life expectancy of the components fitted all of which were (and still are) important factors in aircraft operations.
Using their military knowledge, a standard EKCO practice was to resin encapsulate all high-voltage transformers and similar components, which ensured that the whole equipment was suitable for tropical use and met the most rigorous conditions for civil or military applications.
EKCO also paid attention to duplicating systems with particular attention being paid to the integrity of the duplication. In addition provision was also made for operation from separate sources of primary power all of which provided maximum in-flight reliability, which was (and still is the single most important element for any airborne system.
By 1966, EKCO had embarked on what was to prove their last major civil development, this being the E390 system.
The E390 was specifically designed to meet the challenge of producing weather radar for Concorde.
The unique Concorde operational requirement meant that EKCO had to overcome many new problems.
Of the notable challenges, one of which was that the radar signal being emitted and returned had to electronically compensated whenever the droop snoot visor was operated since the refraction angle changed (think of shining a light through a prism and watch how it changes when you move the prism).
The compound formula to calculate all the changes in signal was worked out longhand by a young graduate student (who was on an EKCO sponsorship package with Cambridge University) and was written out on and filled a 6' X 4' blackboard.
A second major problem was that due to the heat within the nose, conventional soft solder could not be used for soldering connections etc, therefore a high temperature solder had to be developed and of course a high temperature soldering iron.
With the speed of Concorde, the conventional maximum range of 180 miles was deemed woefully inadequate, therefore a special 'pencil beam' with a 360 mile also had to be developed.
While EKCO had always ensured duplication within its equipment, Concorde took this to new extremes whereby there were completely separate operating systems, literarily every thing was duplicated.
Ever the leaders in technology, by 1969, EKCO were developing 'thick film circuits' which were the precursors to today's integrated circuits.
In parallel with civil radars, throughout the 1950's and 60's EKCO continued to work on military airborne radar systems and even today much of this work is still subject to the Official Secrets Act, however if you ever saw the Westland Wessex with what looked like a camels hump on it's back, within the hump was a EKCO radar system.
