Thales Air Defence

Thales Air Defence Limited, formerly Shorts Missile Systems, is a defence contractor based in Belfast, Northern Ireland producing short-range or close air defence missiles. The company has a turnover of approximately £70m and pre-tax profits of £7m.

Shorts Missile Systems (SMS) was established as a joint venture between Shorts' owners Bombardier and Thomson-CSF in 1993. In 2000 Thomson-CSF bought Bombardier's 50% share to become the sole owner. In the same year Thomson-CSF went through a series of mergers and acquisitions to become the Thales Group, consequently in 2001 Shorts Missile Systems was renamed Thales Air Defence Limited (TADL).

The then Shorts Missile Systems was a partner in Raytheon's Future Medium Range Air-Air Missile (FMRAAM) project, which was to replace the AIM-120 AMRAAM missile used by European air forces. In May 2000 the UK selected the MBDA Meteor to fulfil the requirement.

TADL products have been deployed by 56 armed forces around the world. The company employs around 510 people based in Belfast and Paris. The company also operates a remote facility in rural County Down, between Ballynahinch and Downpatrick where missiles are tested and stored.

Anti-aircraft warfare

Anti-aircraft warfare or counter-air defence is defined by NATO as "all measures designed to nullify or reduce the effectiveness of hostile air action." They include ground-and air-based weapon systems, associated sensor systems, command and control arrangements and passive measures (e.g. barrage balloons). It may be used to protect naval, ground, and air forces in any location. However, for most countries the main effort has tended to be 'homeland defence'. NATO refers to airborne air defence as counter-air and naval air defence as anti-aircraft warfare. Missile defence is an extension of air defence as are initiatives to adapt air defence to the task of intercepting any projectile in flight.

In some countries, such as Britain and Germany during the Second World War, the Soviet Union and NATO's Allied Command Europe, ground based air defence and air defence aircraft have been under integrated command and control. However, while overall air defence may be for homeland defence including military facilities, forces in the field, wherever they are, invariably deploy their own air defence capability if there is an air threat. A surface-based air defence capability can also be deployed offensively to deny the use of airspace to an opponent.

Thales

Thales of Miletus (/ˈθeɪliːz/; Greek: Θαλῆς (ὁ Μιλήσιος), Thalēs; c. 624 – c. 546 BC) was a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher, mathematician and astronomer from Miletus in Asia Minor, current day Milet in Turkey and one of the Seven Sages of Greece. Many, most notably Aristotle, regard him as the first philosopher in the Greek tradition. Aristotle reported Thales' hypothesis that the originating principle of nature and the nature of matter was a single material substance: water.

Thales attempted to explain natural phenomena without reference to mythology. Almost all of the other Pre-Socratic philosophers follow him in attempting to provide an explanation of ultimate substance, change, and the existence of the world without reference to mythology.

In mathematics, Thales used geometry to calculate the heights of pyramids and the distance of ships from the shore. He is the first known individual to use deductive reasoning applied to geometry, by deriving four corollaries to Thales' Theorem. He is the first known individual to whom a mathematical discovery has been attributed.

Thales (painter)

Thales of Sicyon, was an ancient Greek painter who is mentioned with the epithet megalophyes, genius by Diogenes Laertius (i. 38), on the authority of Demetrius Magnes. In the same passage, Diogenes speaks of another Thales, as mentioned in the work of Duris on painting ; and it may be presumed, therefore, that this Thales was a painter; but whether the two were different persons, or the same person differently mentioned by Demetrius and by Duris, cannot be determined.

He is placed by a late Byzantine writer, Theodore Hyrtacenus, on a level with Pheidias and Apelles.

References

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Smith, William, ed. (1870). "^{article name needed}". Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology. 

Thales (disambiguation)

Thales was a Greek philosopher from Miletus.

Thales may also refer to: