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Nuke-Lobbing

Posted by michael on from the bombs-away dept.

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."

4 of 365 comments (clear)

  1. New topic: Arms? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Flamebait

    III

    I'm not particularly interested in arms (nukes, potato guns etc). (Yeah, I'm from "old Europe").

    Perhaps the editors could make a special topic for this stuff?

  2. Re:Hmmm... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Flamebait

    You truely are stupid. Pity abortions can;t be retroactive.

  3. TROED THE TROLL by LittleLebowskiUrbanA · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    Do you ever miss an oppurtunity to bash the US?

    --
    This guy is way out there
  4. Re:Physics by Wolfrider · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    --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.)

    --
    .
    == WolfriderV6 == I'm willing to admit that *I just might* be wrong... Are you??