DRDC Valcartier is a major

Canadian Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...

military research station at

Canadian Forces Base Valcartier Canadian Forces Base Valcartier (CFB Valcartier), now re-designated 2 Canadian Division Support Base Valcartier (2 CDSB Valcartier), is a Canadian Forces base located in the municipality of Saint-Gabriel-de-Valcartier, north northwest of Quebe ...

Quebec Quebec ( ; )According to the Canadian government, ''Québec'' (with the acute accent) is the official name in Canadian French and ''Quebec'' (without the accent) is the province's official name in Canadian English is one of the thirtee ...

, one of nine centres making up

Defence Research and Development Canada Defence Research and Development Canada (DRDC; french: Recherche et développement pour la défense Canada, ''RDDC'') is a special operating agency of the Department of National Defence (DND), whose purpose is to provide the Canadian Armed Forces ...

(DRDC). Originally formed at the end of

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

in 1945 as the Canadian Armament Research and Development Establishment (CARDE), the intent was to keep the research teams built up during the war in Canada, as opposed to moving to the United States. Starting in 1951 CARDE implemented a major missile development program, eventually delivering two combat systems, the

Velvet Glove The Velvet Glove was a short-range semi-active radar homing air-to-air missile designed by CARDE (today DRDC Valcartier) and produced by Canadair starting in 1953. 131 Velvet Gloves had been completed when the program was terminated in 1956, offi ...

air-to-air missile The newest and the oldest member of Rafael's Python family of AAM for comparisons, Python-5 (displayed lower-front) and Shafrir-1 (upper-back) An air-to-air missile (AAM) is a missile fired from an aircraft for the purpose of destroying a ...

and the Heller

anti-tank Anti-tank warfare originated from the need to develop technology and tactics to destroy tanks during World War I. Since the Triple Entente deployed the first tanks in 1916, the German Empire developed the first anti-tank weapons. The first deve ...

rocket. Neither was accepted for production, but the basic research was used with local defence contractors to build up familiarity with the new technologies. Starting in 1955 a serious effort to equip Canada with a useful

anti-ballistic missile An anti-ballistic missile (ABM) is a surface-to-air missile designed to counter ballistic missiles (missile defense). Ballistic missiles are used to deliver nuclear weapon, nuclear, Chemical weapon, chemical, Bioagent, biological, or conventiona ...

system was undertaken, along with research into the problems of detection and tracking,

hypersonic In aerodynamics, a hypersonic speed is one that exceeds 5 times the speed of sound, often stated as starting at speeds of Mach 5 and above. The precise Mach number at which a craft can be said to be flying at hypersonic speed varies, since in ...

flight, and fuels suitable for use in an interceptor missile. As part of this project a lengthy study of the upper atmosphere was undertaken from instrumented balloons. Another development from this era was the use of gun-fired models for high-speed testing, instead of using a

wind tunnel Wind tunnels are large tubes with air blowing through them which are used to replicate the interaction between air and an object flying through the air or moving along the ground. Researchers use wind tunnels to learn more about how an aircraft ...

. Led by

Gerald Bull Gerald Vincent Bull (March 9, 1928 – March 22, 1990) was a Canadian engineer who developed long-range artillery. He moved from project to project in his quest to economically launch a satellite using a huge artillery piece, to which end he des ...

, the

sabot Sabot may refer to: * Sabot (firearms), disposable supportive device used in gunpowder ammunitions to fit/patch around a sub-caliber projectile * Sabot (shoe), a type of wooden shoe People * Dick Sabot (1944–2005), American economist and busi ...

-based system would go on to be used in

Project HARP Project HARP, short for High Altitude Research Project, was a joint venture of the United States Department of Defense and Canada's Department of National Defence created with the goal of studying ballistics of re-entry vehicles and collecting ...

during the early 1960s. The early portions of the 1960s was taken up developing a series of increasingly powerful high-acceleration solid rocket propellants, and to test them they designed and built a test vehicle that would later become the

Black Brant The brant or brent goose (''Branta bernicla'') is a small goose of the genus '' Branta''. There are three subspecies, all of which winter along temperate-zone sea-coasts and breed on the high-Arctic tundra. The Brent oilfield was named after ...

sounding rocket A sounding rocket or rocketsonde, sometimes called a research rocket or a suborbital rocket, is an instrument-carrying rocket designed to take measurements and perform scientific experiments during its sub-orbital flight. The rockets are used to ...

. Due to this research CARDE was later involved in the design of a US-Canada-Mexico meteorological sounding rocket, the Metroc. The ABM research eventually wound down with no working system in place, however the solid fuels developed during the program were widely used for rocketry in various western military systems. CARDE then looked into using the new propellant as the basis for a new motor for existing 2.75-inch air-to-ground rockets. The result was the

CRV-7 The CRV7, short for "Canadian Rocket Vehicle 7", is a 2.75-inch (70 mm) folding-fin ground attack rocket produced by Bristol Aerospace in Winnipeg, Manitoba. It was introduced in the early 1970s as an upgraded version of the standard U.S. 2 ...

rocket, which had roughly twice the speed of the existing US design, and with enough energy to be able to puncture

Warsaw Pact The Warsaw Pact (WP) or Treaty of Warsaw, formally the Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance, was a collective defense treaty signed in Warsaw, Poland, between the Soviet Union and seven other Eastern Bloc socialist republic ...

aircraft hangars. Production started at

Bristol Aerospace Bristol Aerospace is a Canadian aerospace firm located in Winnipeg, Manitoba and is an operating division of Magellan Aerospace. Today it is the only remaining and surviving subsidiary of Bristol Aeroplane Company. History Bristol Aerospace ...

in 1974, and the CRV-7 has been used by the Canadian and other air forces since that time. In 1969 a re-alignment from pure research to smaller projects directly requested by the Armed Forces took place, along with a change of name to Defence Research Establishment Valcartier (DREV) and a general downsizing of the station and its budgets. Since then DREV has undertaken numerous projects in the field of battlefield command and control, detection and monitoring, and various battlefield decoy systems. On April 1, 2000, DREV was renamed "Defence R&D Canada – Valcartier" when the overseeing organisation became the

agency.

References

{{Reflist

External links

DRDC ValcartierDRDC Defence Research & Development Canada

Valcartier Canadian Forces Base Valcartier (CFB Valcartier), now re-designated 2 Canadian Division Support Base Valcartier (2 CDSB Valcartier), is a Canadian Forces base located in the municipality of Saint-Gabriel-de-Valcartier, north northwest of Quebec ...

See also

References

External links