nike hercules missile radiation exposure
I reviewed what I had done with the Captain and the test instructions. R. . Attaching the warhead to the missile was a mechanical operation which was used 13 bolts at a specified torque in a proscribed sequence. truck breaking bone's (compound Health | At its peak, it was deployed at over 130 bases in the US alone. The upper stage alone was 24feet 11inches (7.59m) long. HerculesMissile | Hercules was originally developed as a simple upgrade to the earlier MIM-3 Nike Ajax, allowing it to carry a nuclear warhead in order to defeat entire formations of high-altitude supersonic targets. A new missile could be launched about 11 seconds after detonation or rejecting the previous missile. Chicago was slated to shortly begin receiving its Hercules upgrades. Security | I think what we were putting in the jeep was solid propellant fuel for the missiles. All CONUS Hercules batteries, with the exception of the ones in Florida and Alaska, were deactivated by April 1974. MemoryLane | Dangers | TestEquipment | As Hercules had evolved from the fixed-base Ajax system, early deployments offered no mobility. 3/71 in Germany in 66, 67, 68 and loved every moment. Nice run in full gear. Testing was unexpectedly cancelled before the W-7 could be fired.[21]. Second lt. were probably the most dangerous, trying to convince everyone they knew it all but they were just getting started. head wound from the fins (Crew As Chief Site Missile Equipment Engineer, getting a 2 AM phone call at my off base home because a visiting Colonel decided to do an unscheduled snap launch drill during a rain and later lightening storm and got a missile stuck in the raised position on the top of the elevated launch area. We had four missiles in the building. the vicinity of the passive antennas. He could have have protected the equipment, by pointing the antenna away from our HIPAR, a simple thing to do! Dogs constantly getting bit by snakes while on patrol. Cold War Missiles in Miami | The radar can continue to locate the target in elevation or azimuth because all of the signals come from the same location, but the receiver cannot easily determine which pulse was sent by the radar and which was sent by the electronic countermeasures (ECM) on the target aircraft, which is needed to measure the time-of-flight. By making the signal wide-frequency, the jammer has to likewise broadcast across a similar bandwidth, limiting the energy in any one frequency and allowing the operator to tune the receiver to find an unjammed band. A similar test on 17 July against a 300-knot (350mph; 560km/h) Q2A destroyed the target with the T45. Site Bay (C Battery), across Cook Inlet from the others, has been mostly demolished, with only burned out shells of the batteries remaining, as well as a few storage bunkers. My name is Michael Williquette. electricity, Caked ice on radar tower ladders and Just a couple of Nike Site Dangers that I remember that come to my mind: From: "Hank" Length 45 feet, Diameter 32 inches : Two Stage : Four 8" diameter 105,000 Newton-Second "Q" motors in the booster : Staging to one 12" diameter 400,000 Newton-Second "S" motor in the sustainer. Anyway, Google searches show me that I'm not the only "missile jockey" (Nike Hercules) to be diagnosed with PTC later in life. Given the low resolution of the tracking radars available at the time, a formation of aircraft would appear on the radars as a single larger return. 33 feet, Systems 538-594 and He also testified that the Nike-Hercules missiles had atomic warheads and that he felt that he had significant exposure to ionizing radiation because of his military duties. The Hercules missile systems sold to Japan (Nike J) were subsequently fitted with upgraded internal guidance systems, the original vacuum tube systems being replaced with transistorized ones. Starting in April 1960, considerable effort was put into a fully mobile "Cross-Country Hercules" launcher based on the M520 Goer vehicle, an articulated prime mover that saw considerable service during the Vietnam War. Pulling out 2 missiles (one of each type) at 2am so the IFC could do calibration. down range (two MPs injured), Last Dogs | Current Events | [36], The entire sequence of events from decision to launch to actual launch normally took about 36 seconds. Bell began working on the new design in concert with the Nike partners, Western Electric and Douglas Aircraft Company. The active seeker system was later dropped to lower costs. Having to disarm the warhead [6]:20, In 1953, Project Nike delivered the world's first operational anti-aircraft missile system, known simply as Nike. You're in the army now; The occasion was the national commemoration of the tenth anniversary of the establishment of the defense department. LaunchSet | Guestbook | Other diseases associated with radiation exposure. Links | A short period after launch the actual location, i.e. At Shot Morgan on October 7, two sets of missile IFC due to getting tired of the constant blip-blip-blip from the HIPAR. [21], The AMMO shot took place on 1 July 1958, successfully intercepting a simulated 650-knot (750mph; 1,200km/h) target flying at an altitude of 100,000 feet (30,000m) and a slant range of 79 miles (69nmi; 127km). In part because of less parts supportability, Western European (Fourth Allied Tactical Air Force (4 ATAF) and Second Allied Tactical Air Force (2 ATAF) sites essentially became fixed sites and were no longer considered capable of a mobile role. [11] This could be increased even further using stand-off missiles, like those currently under development by all of the nuclear-armed forces for just this reason. 2 people pulling/pushing by hand a 10,710 pound missile to a launcher. Army Air-Defense Command Post (AADCP) B-21DC established at Fort Heath, MA in 1960 for Nike missile command-and-control functions. The changes were designed to be upgradable without major changes to the deployed system the TTR/MTR could be replaced at any time, the HIPAR used its own displays and therefore required no changes in the missile launch equipment, the TRR was slaved to the TTR and simply updated range readings, and the new seeker could be retrofitted at any time. apparent. Our section chief gave another Pvt. and me the job of cleaning the cables in the Panel Room in B Section. [9]:60, In a famous event, the Air Force interviewed for an article that appeared in the New York Times entitled "Air Force Calls Army Nike Unfit To Guard Nation". Four Nike batteries were normally organized into a single battalion.[36]. Overview | The Hawk locked on and blew the whole back half of the bus off. I called the number at 2:45 AM and got no answer (this was before answering machines). Sent: Monday, May 14, 2012, From: "Robert Kirk" and could be spared), Finding warhead seal broken The guidance commands were sent to the missile by modulating the MTR transmit signal. [35] Three versions were produced, MIM-14A, B and C. The differences between these versions are not known. [18] This forced the Army to turn its Jupiter IRBM systems to the Air Force, and to limit the range of their ABM developments. C-50 | As the larger Hercules would be easier to adapt to a longer-range form, the Army selected it as the winning design. Hercules was officially referred to as transportable, but moving a battery was a significant operation and required considerable construction at the firing sites. It often had rack sections attached to it also. There was an American with him in the barn at the time but didnt see him lock and load a round. Posterior subcapsular cataracts. Nuclear Missiles in Miami; ALASKA'S COLD WAR . The House eventually came to support the Defense Secretary's position as stated in the Master Air Defense Plan, retaining Hercules while reducing BOMARC and SAGE. Luckily spread eagle. The first Nike Ajax missile site became operational at Fort Meade, Maryland, in 1954. Then put it back in the barn. The occasion was the national commemoration of the tenth anniversary of the establishment of the defense department. I was told police, fire services, and a host of other radios would be useless for a large area of the east coast! As soon at the TTR was locked on to a target, an analog computer (later digital) continually computed a suitable intercept point in the sky and an expected 'time to fly' of the missile based on information from the TTR and basic performance information about the missile. For these missions the computer used the MTR to guide the missile to a point above the target, then commanded it to dive vertically while measuring any changes in trajectory as it fell. Conversions were largely complete by 1960, leaving only a few Ajax sites in use. and doing it up wind (Black Later banned as a carcinogen. One morning we ran the HIPAR antennas up into position and all the interlock lights lit so I lit up the transmitter and suddenly every neon lamp in the ACQ van starts flashing on and off which I quickly realized was in time with the antenna rotation. It was launched on a Nike-Hercules missile, and detonated at a lower altitude than the other Fishbowl tests. [9]:62, Meanwhile, the Air Force scrambled to bring BOMARC to operational status, and on 1 September 1959 declared the 46th Air Defense Squadron at McGuire Air Force Base operational. Three key elements were identified; the need to attack formations without nuclear warheads, operations against low-altitude targets, and better traffic-handling capabilities to handle larger raids. SF-51 | Soviet development of ICBMs and the de-emphasis of their bomber force decreased the value of the Hercules system. Government mistakenly told them it was safe to return to their home island. Both forces, and their congressional supporters, realized that splitting the budget would mean neither force would be funded to the level required to fulfill the defence mission. The Nike Hercules missile launcher was called the M-36E1 monorail launcher. [25], In early 1956, Bell began studies of the Improved Nike Hercules (INH) concept by considering the predicted threat for the 1960-65 period. My instructions said nothing about stopping the test, so I finished the tests, Cold War is Cold War! Several years later I was working for AT&T when I ran across an article in an AT&T magazine about Murray Hill in New Jersey. [14], The new design ultimately provided effective ranges on the order of 75 miles (65nmi; 121km) and altitudes ranging from 20,000 to 100,000 feet (6,100 to 30,500m). Italy | but the orders were canceled because of a security leak. 127 feet, Missile Tracking Germany 1961: Being the only one in the back of a 5 ton when the driver slams on the brakes. In May 1952, Bell was asked to explore such an adaptation to the Nike. Radar | MPs an 16Bs (most sites), Down Store | From: Barry Hayes You did tasks like those of a Department of Energy (DOE) employee that make them a member of the Special Exposure Cohort (See 42 U.S.C. Alaska | 330 feet, Systems 538-594 and I mean really fired it up, small spark followed immediately by a medium explosion! Faulty solid fuel flamed out about 500' after launch, separated from second stage and then reignited and slammed into the second stage. A test against the much higher performance Pershing was carried out on 16 October 1963, and while the HIPAR was able to detect the missile, the tracking system was unable to track it. [26] Engineering was complete in 1958 and entered low-rate production in May 1959. By 1959, Plato was still very much a paper project when news of large deployments of short-range missiles in the Warsaw Bloc became a clear threat. Meanwhile, the TTR can continue offering location information, and in the case that is also jammed (difficult but possible), was upgraded to offer a home-on-jam mode that used the ECM system's own broadcasts as a location source. Safety officer blew it before it crossed into Mexico. Due to the nature of these fuels, extreme caution had to be used whenever the missiles were moved or unloaded for maintenance. 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