Racal was founded by Ray Brown and Jock Calder Cunningham in 1950. After some difficult years Racal made the RA-17 in 1955 as part of a Royal Navy deal. The RA-17 used the then revolutionary Wadley-loop circuit.
In 1979 Racal bought Decca Radar and formed Racal-Decca. After some name changes in the 1980's and 90's, Racal was finally sold to Thomson-CSF, now known as Thales Group.
