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Rainbow Code

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The Rainbow Codes were a series of code names used to disguise the nature of various British military research projects. They were mainly used from after the Second World War until 1958, when they were replaced by an alphanumeric code system.

History

The Ministry of Supply (MoS) initiated the idea since during the war some German secret projects could be inferred from their code names. To give just one example, the radio navigation device known as "Wotan", was named after the one-eyed god of the same name. Each code name was constructed from a colour, plus a noun taken from a list, for example:

While most colour and noun combinations were meaningless, some were real names, although quite unrelated to the project they designated. For example, Black Maria is also a name for a police van and Red Duster is a name for the Red Ensign, the flag flown by British merchant ships.

The names were mostly dropped with the end of the Ministry in 1959. Its functions were transferred to the War Office, the Air Ministry which handled military aviation, and the newly-created Ministry of Aviation in charge of civil aviation. After the reorganization, projects were mostly named with randomly-selected codes comprising two letters and three digits, eg. BL755, WE177. However, rainbow codes continue to be used with some modern systems; current examples include the Blue Vixen radar[1] and the Orange Reaper Electronic Support Measures system.

Projects

Black

  • Black Arrow - a satellite launch vehicle derived from Blue Streak/Black Knight
  • Black Knight - a re-entry vehicle for Blue Streak
  • Black Maria - fighter IFF interrogator
  • Black Prince - proposed satellite launch vehicle based on Blue Streak/Black Knight - a.k.a. Blue Star
  • Black Rock - surface to surface guided missile

Blue

Brown

Green

Indigo

Jade

  • Jade River - continuous wave radar, developed from the Indigo Corkscrew

Orange

Pink

  • Pink Hawk - early name for Fairey Fireflash missile. As this was a "reduced" version of the Red Hawk, it is a rare example of Rainbow Codes having some implied meaning, rather than their usual purely deliberately meaningless choice.

Purple

Red

Violet

Yellow

Non-Rainbow codes

Several British military related terms have a similar format to Rainbow Codes, but are not since they do not refer to classified research projects. These include:

See also

References

Notes
  1. ^ "Blue Vixen radar (United Kingdom), AIRBORNE RADAR SYSTEMS". Jane's Avionics. Retrieved 2009-08-08.
  2. ^ http://www.skomer.u-net.com/projects/blueboar.htm
  3. ^ http://www.aeroflight.co.uk/reviews/books/review7.htm
  4. ^ Green Mace Anti-Aircraft Gun
  5. ^ British Secret Projects: Jet Bombers Since 1949 Tony Buttler Midland Publishing 2003
  6. ^ The Red Queen and the Vigilante accessed 22nd April 2008
  7. ^ Red Queen
  8. ^ "Airborne DF has existed for over 50 years". PPRuNe - Professional Pilots Rumour Network. 22 September 2010.
  9. ^ Davis, R.A. (1993). "Concorde Power Plant Fire Protection System". Aircraft Engineering and Aerospace Technology (5): 26–30. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |vol= ignored (|volume= suggested) (help)
Bibliography