Nuke-Lobbing

SlideGuitar writes "The following is a fascinating article about how the Navy in the 1950s, wanting to assure that it had a carrier based nuclear force, used A1 Skyraider (single engine propellor driven aircraft) to lob nuclear bombs using a manuever called the "goofy loop" (read the article.) The goofy loop put about seven miles between them and a Mark 7 nuclear device at detonation. The pilots knew that (1) they couldn't get far enough away to survive, and (2) if they did survive there probably wouldn't be a carrier to go back to anyway. There are lots of emails from pilots who did the manuever and what they thought about the whole business."

Comments

TROED THE TROLL

[LittleLebowskiUrbanA]

Do you ever miss an oppurtunity to bash the US?

Re:Physics

[Wolfrider]

--The difference would be the NUCLEAR FALLOUT, numbnuts...

--Nuclear weapons and "can be used safely" don't go together in the same sentence. If you drop a few half-tonne bombs, you don't have to worry about the surrounding countryside getting RADIOACTIVE (and all that that implies.)