English Electric Thunderbird | Wikipedia audio article
Channel: wikipedia tts
Date: 23/01/2019

This is an audio version of the Wikipedia Article:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thunderbird_(missile)


00:01:27 1 History
00:01:37 1.1 Red Heathen
00:03:41 1.2 The Stage Plan
00:05:53 1.3 Development
00:08:12 1.4 Further development
00:10:31 2 Operators
00:10:40 2.1 Former
00:11:18 2.2 Potential
00:11:31 3 Survivors
00:12:30 4 Specifications
00:13:00 5 See also



Listening is a more natural way of learning, when compared to reading. Written language only began at around 3200 BC, but spoken language has existed long ago.

Learning by listening is a great way to:
- increases imagination and understanding
- improves your listening skills
- improves your own spoken accent
- learn while on the move
- reduce eye strain

Now learn the vast amount of general knowledge available on Wikipedia through audio (audio article). You could even learn subconsciously by playing the audio while you are sleeping! If you are planning to listen a lot, you could try using a bone conduction headphone, or a standard speaker instead of an earphone.

Listen on Google Assistant through Extra Audio:
https://assistant.google.com/services/invoke/uid/0000001a130b3f91
Other Wikipedia audio articles at:
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=wikipedia+tts
Upload your own Wikipedia articles through:
https://github.com/nodef/wikipedia-tts
Speaking Rate: 0.8925845928266917
Voice name: en-AU-Wavenet-B


"I cannot teach anybody anything, I can only make them think."
- Socrates


SUMMARY
=======
The English Electric Thunderbird was a British surface-to-air missile produced for the British Army. Thunderbird was primarily intended to attack higher altitude targets at ranges up to approximately 30 miles (48 km), providing wide-area air defence for the Army in the field. AA guns were still used for lower altitude threats. Thunderbird entered service in 1959 and underwent a major mid-life upgrade to Thunderbird 2 in 1966, before being slowly phased out by 1977. Ex-Army Thunderbirds were also operated by the Royal Saudi Air Force after 1967.
Thunderbird had performance similar to other semi-portable missiles like the US MIM-23 Hawk and fully mobile Soviet 2K11 Krug, although it pre-dates both of these systems. After its mid-life upgrades, which shared several components with the RAF's Bristol Bloodhound, Thunderbird featured a continuous-wave radar semi-active homing system that was highly resistant to radar jamming and deception, and was able to track targets even at very low altitudes.
Thunderbird was the Army's only heavy anti-aircraft missile. As missile systems like Thunderbird made flight at medium and higher altitudes practically suicidal, nap-of-the-earth flying became the norm and even shorter-range, faster acting systems were needed. Thunderbird's role was taken over by the much smaller BAC Rapier as it became available.