How's this for an attack platform ?
Posted on 02/24/2012 5:14:32 PM PST by U-238
In the 1970s, the Air Force launched a Minuteman ICBM launched from a C-5 Galaxy. Hold on, what!?!?
That was my reaction upon learning that the above sentence is true.
In 1974, the Air Force decided that it could turn C-5 Galaxy airlifters into flying SSBNs. Yup, Air Force planners thought the missile would be tougher for the Soviets to take out with a preemptive strike if it was already aboard a moving target like a C-5 versus sitting in a stationary missile silo.
So, they loaded a Minuteman into a C-5 that parachute-dropped the 60-foot tall missile out of its aft cargo ramp over the Pacific Ocean. After the ICBM fell for a few thousand feet, its rocket motor ignited and the missile flew for ten seconds under its own power. Just to prove it could be done. Wild.
Needless to say, the crazy concept of turning C-5s into flying boomers never made it to the operational stage.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=It7SQ546xRk
(Excerpt) Read more at defensetech.org ...
There was also a scheme at the same time called the “Ground Proximity Extraction System” which involved using grappling hooks tossed out the back of the aircraft to engage arresting cables on the ground to pull the cargo out of the aircraft.
That one didn’t go very far either; I believe it also cost several aircraft in the development process.
bump
thanks
Thank goodness I still have the Military Channel though
Thanks very much for the links. WOW!
Truth be told, I'm listening to BBC World News on 9.460Mhz on the shortwave in the background.
I'd trust Radio Moscow before I trust ABCCBSNBCCNNetc...
/johnny
If you have not yet read the book Flight of the Old Dog by Dale Brown I strongly urge you to do so.
Imagine a 767 equipped as a flying battleship.
I think you would enjoy it quite a bit.
Cheers,
knewshound
Thanks for those links...dangerous; interesting; conscientious objectors (back in the day even they did something productive).
The big benefit was that it was mobile. Silo-based missiles were vulnerable to a surprise first strike. Bombers could be kept aloft, invulnerable to a first strike, but bombers would then have to be able to penetrate enemy air defenses.
A C-5 would have the benefit of a bomber (could be launched on first indication that a strike was imminent, and be called back if it was a false alarm) along with the advantages of an ICBM (hard for an enemy to stop once launched)
If you were an airline executive, or Boeing, would YOU want the Soviets to always be unsure as to whether any given 747 flying near the USSR was really a strategic launch platform?
BBC is pretty dang biased too aren’t they?
But sometimes I do actually listen to their stories. I take them with a large grain of sodium chloride.
But it's amazing what you can train old, poor-hearing ears to do on S/N ratio on monitoring the F layer. ;)
/johnny
Of course it didn’t have a warhead, but it obviously had rocket fuel, ergo pucker factor high.
Russia and China does not need to do this...
Instead they BUY and OWN democrats.. and some RINOs...
Anything for my FRiends at Free Republic.
do you ever listen to the crazy conspiracy nut kind of shortwave channels or the World Harvest Church?
Just wondering.
/johnny
How's this for an attack platform ?
Totally fictional, of course.
I have always wondered how far some radio station signals will go. I know there are sites that show it, I just can’t seem to remember how to find them. lol.
Even with Google I am often lost.
Hmm...replace the cruises with Hellfires, Tomahawks or Harpoons, and I think you’re on to something!!!
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