An AIR-2 Genie air-to-air unguided rocket armed with a 1.7 kiloton W25 nuclear warhead was launched from an F-89 Scorpion fighter aircraft.
The weapon detonated 18,000 feet above five USAF officers.
The purpose of the test was to prove that the weapon was safe for use over populated areas.
If they’re safe for use over populated areas, what’s the point?
They had great big brass ones.
About that time I was building a Revell model of the F 89. And I believe that was a Canberra flying as wing man to the Scorpion.
Everyone on earth survived it.
Interesting reactions.
When airmen were men and not politically correct.
Article also on Daily Mail website
I liked how the fins deployed ( see 1st pic at link ). They were spring loaded. All four were held down by an x cord at the back. When the motor fired it burned through the cord and all four fins deployed. No other missile was like it as they all have non retractable fins.
All USAF weapons troops trained on this missile until it's retirement in 1988, even those who didn't work on the F-106. Many of us wanted to work on that plane at the time.
The B-57 was the American-built version of the English Electric Canberra light bomber. The main recognition points between RAF and USAF versions were: (1) the offset bubble canopy and circular escape hatch of the RAF model (no ejection seats) and (2) the tandem seating, long canopy, and ejection seats on the USAF version. The last B-57 units retired in 1983.
May I ask an impertinent and uniformed question...
We’ve all heard about how a single upper atmospheric nuclear detonation could wreak havoc due to EMP (electro-magnetic pulse, if I have that right).
This device is detonated about 2 miles overhead, and directly underneath are cameras and a tape recorder to record the reaction of the men on the ground.
Why doesn’t the EMP from the blast wipe out the tape recorder, at least? Or the camera along with it?
No, tape recorders back then did not have microchips, and were relatively basic devices, yet the signal from recording head to tape should have been susceptible to an electromagnetic pulse of that size at a relatively close distance? If not, why not?
My point is — looking at the results of this test, it makes me wonder if all the talk about “an EMP attack” is just so much more hype and nonsense, lots of speculation with little to back it up?
Educate me....
Pffft... Indiana Jones survived a much more powerful nuke while hiding in a fridge.
Col. Sidney C. Bruce (USAF, Ret.) is following up a distinguished military career with another equally effective career in religion. A leader for eight years in military applications of nuclear energy, he has thus spanned the gamut from atoms to the infinite.
http://www.colorado.edu/engineering/deaa2/cgi-bin/display.pl?id=77