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Aviation History
1959
1959 - 1320.PDF
8 May 1959 645 The 35fiOOft captive missile test track at the A.k.D.C. Air Force Missile Development Center, Holloman A.F.B., New Mexico, was officially opened on February 25 this year which cable connections are made to the missile, and the main erector has seven working platforms. Around the launch stand are storage tanks and emergency dump pits for fuel and liquid oxygen, a theodolite hut, air conditioning equipment and television camera positions. A shallow ramp and two exhaust water channels lead to and from the pad on opposite sides, and a tunnel carries instru- mentation cabling to the blockhouse, which is about the same distance away as for the Atlas sites. The Titan blockhouse is a two-floor structure which we entered through a thick steel door on the lower level. Coloured protective helmets labelled JONES, JIM, etc., hung on racks near the entrance. Upstairs in the control room the layout seemed even more spacious than that for Atlas; half of the equipment comprised the opera- tional launch control system, and the remainder covered research and development. The control room is served by six closed-circuit television cameras and four periscopes, and the test conductor's control console is surrounded by unit consoles concerned with pneu- matics, liquid oxygen, fuel and other operating functions. The rear of the control room is filled with racks of electronic equip- ment. The entire blockhouse is enclosed by a concrete^and-sand sandwich up to 28ft thick, and there are two emergency tunnel exits. Three Titan test vehicles had been fired at the time of our visit—on February 6, February 25 and April 3 this year. The object of these tests had been "to evaluate the compatibility of the airframe, first stage propulsion and the control system" (in each case the missile had incorporated a dummy second stage filled with water), and each firing was successful. As is the case with Thor and Atlas, every Titan flown is a production-line missile. The Air Force Missile Test Center at Patrick A.F.B. and at Cape Canaveral (the overall organization of which was described last week) is a unit of Air Research and Development Command, whose headquarters are located at Andrews A.F.B., near Washington, D.C. Calling in at Andrews on Friday, April 24 prior to our departure for "Orly Field, Paris, France" and Northolt, we were able to learn something of the overall work of A.R.D.C., the command of which is shortly to change from Maj-Gen. John W. Sessums, Jr., to Maj-Gen. Bernard A. Schrieyer. The broad responsibility of A.R.D.C. is to maintain the qualita- tive superiority of U.S.A.F. air weapons. In addition to its headquarters the Command has 12 sub-commands or centres throughout the U.S.A., 23 technical liaison officers and a European office in Brussels. Among its major U.S. centres are the Air Force Ballistic Missile Division at Inglewood, California (Flight, April 17), and the following bases. Flight testing of aircraft powerplants and components and static firing of missile powerplants is performed at the Air Force Flight Test Center at Edwards A.F.B., California. Probably the best known of all A.R.D.C. Centers, this base is located in the Mojave Desert, and makes use of the natural runway 13 miles long and 5 miles wide formed by Muroc dry lake. The Air Force Special Weapons Center at Kirtland A.F.B., New Mexico, works closely with the Atomic Energy Commission and the Armed Forces Special Weapons Project at the nearby Sandia base in the develop- ment and testing of nuclear and thermonuclear weapons. Aircraft from the 4926th Test Squadron (Atomic) based at Kirtland fly through nuclear clouds as early as 15 minutes after detonation, in order to gather radiation samples. Ground electronic components of all types are developed and tested at the Rome Air Development Center at Griffiss A.F.B., New York. At Boston, Massachusetts, the Air Force Cambridge Research Center is responsible for research and technical develop- ment over a wide field in electronics and geophysics, co-operating closely with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Lincoln Laboratories on air defence warning systems. Wind tunnels and high-altitude test cells at the Arnold Engineering Development Center at Tullahoma, Tennessee, are used for testing and evaluation of aircraft, missiles, aerodynamic components and propulsion systems. At Eglin A.F.B. near Pen- sacola, Florida, is located the Air Proving Ground Center, which utilizes a range area of 800 square miles over the mainland and the Gulf of Mexico. Used for testing of aircraft armament systems, these ranges have also been employed for the evaluation of the Bomarc missile. Among the facilities of the Center is a climatic hangar in which components and aircraft can be tested at tempera- tures from —65 deg F to +165 deg. The Wright Air Development Center at Dayton, Ohio, is one of the world's most extensive and completely equipped facilities devoted to aeronautical development. Propulsion, aerodynamics, navigation and aviation medicine are included in the wide range of its subjects of research. Recent tests at the Aero Medical Laboratory at this Center have been concerned with the physical and psychological problems of weightlessness. The final estab- lishment in this list of research and test centres, and one that is illustrated on this page, is the Air Force Missile Development Center at Holloman A.F.B., New Mexico. Together with the Army White Sands proving ground to the south, a range 100 miles long and 40 miles wide is provided in which are sited test facilities and tracking instrumentation for short-range missiles. The Center also carries out research in geophysics, electronics and aviation medicine, and its seven-mile supersonic track forms a valuable facility in testing advanced ballistic missile components such as ICBM nose-cones. This, then, was the end of our U.SA.F. missile tour. We had seen component parts of the Thor IRBM being manufactured and tested, final assembly at Douglas Santa Monica, and the first Thor launch by an R.A.F. crew. We had visited R.A.F. specialists training in the many aspects of operating the missile, and had obtained an idea of the great effort that had produced a virtually operational IRBM in only three years. From die U.SA.F. Ballistic Missile Division and Strategic Air Command we had learned how Thor and the other U.S. missiles fit into the overall picture of the U.S. strategy of deterrence. We had visited Cape Canaveral, a name synonymous with space research, and had seen Discoverer 2 launched from the west coast. By way of an incidental bonus there was the World Congress of Flight and (to put it mildly) there was Las Vegas. Transport during this 8,500-mile tour had been by a Convair C-131D of the 1254di Air Transport Group (Special Missions) of Military Air Transport Service, commanded impeccably by Capt. Clark E. Farrar with Capt. Jack Batty as co-pilot. The unenviable job of escorting the Press group was handled efficiently by Maj. William James of U.S.A.F. Headquarters, Washington, Lt-Col. Robert Wilson of the Third Air Force, South Ruislip, and Maj. John Laurie of the Seventh Air Division, S.A.C. By the end of the trip we were no longer surprised at the sight of a five-stage neon rocket firing outside our motel—this, needless to say, was at Cocoa Beach, near Cape Canaveral. Neither were we surprised to find "lox on the rocks" on die restaurant cocktail list. As for serious missile information it is pleasant (if immodest) to record that the 1958 Missiles issue of Flight was praised as a source of reference by many of the missile specialists we met—and was carried and used for reference during the tour by the repre- sentatives of more than one journal. One of the fastest sleds used on the new track at Holloman, this device can carry a 200 Ib paylood at speeds approaching Mach 4
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