Oral history of British science
Raynor, Frank (Part 13 of 18) An Oral History of British Science
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Type
sound
Duration
00:40:01
Shelf mark
C1379/76
Subjects
Electronics
Recording date
2012-08-02
Recording locations
Interviewee's home, Abingdon
Interviewees
Raynor, Frank, 1922- (speaker, male)
Interviewers
Lean, Thomas (speaker, male)
Abstract
Part 13: [40:01] Remarks on: enjoyments in work at Aldermaston, always something interesting, good colleagues; spending around a year at weapons tests in his 7 year Aldermaston career at various times between 1952 and 1957; return to Pacific in 1957 for Operation Grapple X, faster pace of tests. [03:30] Remarks on Grapple X: description of Christmas Island, used for weapons test; FR duties on Ed Fuller's re-entry party similar to Grapple; improvement of facilities and conditions for later Grapple tests, relaxing atmosphere at night, food and conditions; forward control buildings, proximity to test; blast wave passing over; Grapple X first British megaton test; comparison of Grapple X and earlier smaller nuclear explosions, scale and size of explosion. [12:52] Remarks on: FR duties after test; development of mushroom cloud after tests; return home from test. [16:20] Anecdote about return home via first Polar route flight from San Francisco, via Thule, [17:10 - phone] conclusion of anecdote. [18:05] Anecdote about flight to Grapple, via luxury flight after an aircraft failure. [20:10] Remarks on return home after Grapple X: relieved to be back home; return to routine work at Aldermaston. Story about FR applying for a more senior post at Harwell CTR group where work on ZETA fusion machine had taken place; wife in favour of him working closer to home; paperwork delays and snow causing FR interview problems; Nobby Clarke offering him promotion at Aldermaston; delay releasing FR from Aldermaston; FR interview with John Mitchell on ZETA project at Harwell in June 1958, where FR impressed him with experience of high level vacuums; FR assignment to build instrumentation for Jim Paul on Spider fast pinch experiment. [27:22] Comments on: equipment FR built for Jim Paul; description of a pinch, a device to create a tightly controlled magnetic field used to control a plasma in a toroid; purpose and description of FR trigger and delay equipment on Jim Paul's Pinch to discharge capacitor banks at correct times, to allow the measurement of the magnetic field. [33:30] Remarks on: value of Aldermaston experiences to FR at Harwell, example of better Aldermaston knowledge of fast pulse technology; FR construction of modular instrument equipment as experiment developed; FR recruitment by engineering then transfer to physics division by 'Bas' Pease, later issues with grading of FR and colleagues; [37:00] electronics division duties and expansion; expectation of move of division to Winfrith, changed to move to Culham instead. [37:55] Description of Harwell site, originally airfield, level of contract between various groups, Hanger 7 housing ZETA, Building 488 housing expansion of experiments connected with CTR group's fast pinch group, transfer of group to Culham.
Description
Interview with technician, Frank Raynor
Related transcripts
Frank Raynor interviewed by Thomas Lean: full transcript of the interview
Related links
Visit this interviewee's page on the 'Voices of Science' web resource
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