This photo shows the Bright Display screen in close up. Since this equipment did
not have the facility to automatically display the identity of individual aircraft,
targets were identified using a variety of means such as instructing the aircraft
to make a turn or obtaining a DME distance report
on a particular track and correlating this with the displayed return.
One an aircraft was identified, identification was maintained using 'shrimp boats', as seen in this photo. These were small pieces of perspex which were dampened and pressed on to the screen where they were held by suface tension. On them the aircraft's callsign was written in chinagraph pencil. As the aircraft progressed across the screen, so the shrimp boat was also moved.
This was a simple but fairly effective system, although a trick used to be to thump the console of an unsuspecting colleague thus causing all the shrimp boats to fall off!
(Photo: CAHS collection)
Airways Museum Virtual Tour
If this page appears without menu bars at top and left, click here