Fortunately, I live close enough to 'Vandeyland' that I can watch launches from my living room!

We're now waiting for the new Titan V EELV coming up in November, I believe. The sound from the biggies is wonderful here, but the Delta's hardly even rattle the windows. What fun is that?

That launch sequence posted by Darwin was used in the movie "Koyaanisqatsi: Life out of Balance" and is a must see if you're into esoteric films. The film begins with the launch of the Apollo 12 Saturn V and ends with the slow motion destruction of the Atlas. The revolving engine cluster is so well filmed that you can see the Aerojet General logo clearly as it falls back to Earth.

One interesting story (if you guys don't mind a thread thief?) about Aerojet was a failed engine test. The solid motor broke loose from the hardstand and had enough energy to launch itself a few miles, landing on the property of Douglas. Causing no damage, the Douglas people had a sense of humor and quickly sent a note proclaiming this as an aggressive act and that a state of war existed between the two companies!

Those were the days.

Darwin, model of the year.

The history is really wonderful. I have a railroad pass that allows me to go into vandenberg.

Atlas launches were really spectacular.

For all the problems with the kit, that's one beauty, Darwin! 

Mark 

HI Great job on the Atlas model and some very interesting info on the different launch sites.

Mckay

These are a couple shots of full scale missiles. 

This is the # 4 launch of an Atlas A on June 11, 1957 from Launch Complex 14 at Cape Canaveral.

This the # 6 launch of an Atlas A on September 25, 1957 from Launch Complex 14 at Cape Canaveral

Darwin, O.F. 

Nice work! Thanks for all the background info, too!

A really great presentation all around!

Now there's something I don't see every day! Most impressive. Reminds me, I think I got a Revell V2 kit stashed around here somewhere.

Great work!

Darwin, that's a neat, unique build there. THe finish came out great. It must be nice to have such a rare model in your display case....I'm sure it shows well. Very impressive in size,. too

I was born and raised in Sacramento California and have fond memories of Aerojet noise.

(1967-1975) Often, a sonic vibration would eminate from everwhere, but mostly the from the ground. Like a short-wave Earthquake. Suddenly everything would instantaneously shake at a high frequency. Most noticeable is window glass as it shook within the frame. Every window, every frame everywhere... just shaking like mad. Then as suddenly as it started, it would stop, cease... to quiet and gradually birds would begin to chirp again.

For years and years you could see "rocket" stands and apparatus out in the grounds near Aerojet proper. They're gone now. Now it's condos. A lot of condos.

This is a photo of an Atlas F just seconds after launch at Vandenburg AFB, California, and the BEGINNING of an explosion that totally destroyed it.

The rectangular silo door is clearly visible under the missile.  The missile is centered over that door at the start of the launch and SHOULD stay that way.  It is obviously displaced to the right.  Notice the exhaust plumes from the two vernier engines on the sides.  The right one is pushed down close to the missile and the left one is stretched out, again indicating the missile drifting to the side.  The blast/flame deflector is to the left, so nearly all of the, "hell, fire and brimstone" from the engine exhaust should be going to the left.  That huge plume of yellow/orange fire to the right is NOT supposed to be there.  Apparently there was a major rupture in the tanks and the LOX/RP-1 fuel has mixed together and has ignited.  I suspect the range Safety Officer has initiated command destruct which was a mechanism that slashed the bulkhead dividing the two tanks and caused the explosive destruction of the missile.

Darwin, O.F. 

I was stationed at Dyess AFB, Abilene, Texas.  I was never stationed at Plattsburgh.

A recent development in the history of Atlas sites: http://omaha.com/index.php?u_page=2798&u_sid=10408219

Never saw anything about those accidental explosions in the media, many people killed or injured?

IIRC, there was one fatality and a small number of minor injuries total for all 4 accidents.

While I was in Tech School at Sheppard AFB, the instructors conducted a safety demonstration about the hazards of mixing LOX and any petroleum based product.  LOX and oil together form a gel that is not hypergolic (explodes on contact), but it is MUCH more unstable than nitroglycerin and will detonate from the slightest physical or electrical shock.  They took a 1 oz dixie cup and put ONE TABLESPOON of LOX and TWO DROPS of 3 in 1 OIL in the cup.  They then dropped a 5 pound lead weight down over a guide rail onto the cup.  The force of the explosion blew the lead weight several hundred feet into the air.  Can you imagine the force of the explosion when several thousand gallons of LOX and RP-1 fuel get together inside the silo and detonate?  One of the accidents, I think at Walker AFB, happened with the silo doors still closed.  One of the 135 TON concrete doors was found about a quarter mile away.  Chicken Little said, "The sky is falling, the sky is falling!"

Darwin, O.F. 

yardbird78 wrote:

The 6 Atlas F bases with 12 sites each were at Plattsburgh AFB, Plattsburgh, New York; Lincoln AFB, Lincoln, Nebraska; Schilling AFB, Salina, Kansas; Altus AFB, Altus, Oklahoma; Dyess AFB, Abilene, Texas; and Walker AFB, Roswell, New Mexico. Each site had one missile in individual below ground, vertical silos. 4 Atlas F sites were destroyed by accidental explosions during PLX's, one at Altus and 3 at Walker. Da _ _, once I get started, the BS just keeps rolling along! Darwin, O.F.

Now that brings back childhood memories!  I clearly remember the Atlas site at Sugarbush, NY (Plattsburgh AFB remote site) and the awe when those big doors opened and the missile rose up against a clear blue summer sky,  We always wondered if this was going to be the real thing in '61 or just a test, but the vapor drifting off the side of the missile made us all nervous!  It was a marvelous sight!  I understand that the site is in private hands now, having been partially converted to underground living quarters and dead storage for possibly record archives.....thanks a million for the background info!  Were you ever stationed at PAFB?

Brian 

My dad was a crew chief ion the Titan II n the 308th SMW at Little Rock.   I have been planning and hording bits and pieces to someday build a 1/144th cutaway of a Titan II silo.  Also hanging on to two "All Systems Are Go" Atlas/Mecury kits from Revell (the reissues from the 90s) with the launch gantry.  Have been dreaming of making an Atlas D in a coffin launcher out of them.

If you are interested in ICBMs, I highly recommend this website:  http://www.siloworld.com/

Fantastic collection of photos, drawings, tours, etc. for all ICBM systems.

Great build of a challenging kit.   I thought about ordering the 1/72 Titan II from this company, but after seeing the photos-I'll pass!

I received a PM asking me where the silo in photo #3 is located.  It is from the 577th Strategic Missile Squadron, site #11 at Willow, Oklahoma, northwest of Altus.  While I was trying to figure out that answer I was jotting down some other miscellaneous BS about ICBM's and came up with the following.

All of the Atlas D, E and F silos still remain, although most have been gutted for scrap metal. The 72 Atlas F vertical silos were mostly gutted and then mother nature filled them with water. I think that all of them are now in private hands and a few have been cleaned up at least enough to enter them without killing yourself. The Launch Control Centers on several have been turned into extremely neat underground homes.
The 2 Atlas D bases with 3 sites each were at Offutt AFB, Omaha, Nebraska, and FE Warren AFB, Cheyenne, Wyoming. Each site had 3 missiles in individual above ground, horizontal coffins.

The 3 Atlas E bases with 9 sites each were at FE Warren AFB, Wyoming; Fairchild AFB, Spokane, Washington; and Forbes AFB, Topeka, Kansas. Each site had one missile in individual ground level, horizontal coffins

The 6 Atlas F bases with 12 sites each were at Plattsburgh AFB, Plattsburgh, New York; Lincoln AFB, Lincoln, Nebraska; Schilling AFB, Salina, Kansas; Altus AFB, Altus, Oklahoma; Dyess AFB, Abilene, Texas; and Walker AFB, Roswell, New Mexico. Each site had one missile in individual below ground, vertical silos.
4 Atlas F sites were destroyed by accidental explosions during PLX's, one at Altus and 3 at Walker.

Vandenburg AFB, California has examples of all of the various ICBM's.

53 of the 54 Titan II sites at Little Rock, Arkansas; Wichita, Kansas and Tucson, Arizona were deliberately destroyed with large amounts of explosives to keep the Russians happy. One south of Tucson has been kept intact for a museum.

Titan I squadrons were at Ellsworth AFB, Rapid City, South Dakota; Lowery AFB, Denver, Colorado; Beale AFB, Marysville, California; and Larson AFB, Moses Lake, Washington, and have all been pretty well stripped out. Ellsworth, Beale & Larson each had three sites with 3 missiles each stored in vertical, underground silos. Lowery had six sites with 3 missiles each.

For some reason, the Titan I sites seem to have developed more contamination and are LETHAL to anyone entering them without full self contained breathing apparatus. It is a phenomenon similar to what happened to the ships sunk at Pearl Harbor. The water combines with trash and debris and forms cyanide gas.

Da _ _, once I get started, the BS just keeps rolling along!

Darwin, O.F.   

Outstanding job here!

You've captured the vehicle nicely, and have done an excellent job with the parts you have before you.

My dad was the technical illustrator for Aerojet General (Sacramento Division, both liquid and solid propulsion sectons) where these engines were built from 1960 thru 1993, and I can tell you that this model would serve well in their display. Be proud of your work and give yourself a big slap on the back!

Excellent! Well done!

Your comments and notes are interesting too.

phoenix7187 wrote:

Looks great, I build rockets as well. The extra work you did shows, it really payed off. between ther mods and the fit issues you manged to make a winner out of her. If I remember correctly that a single warhead like the minutemen  I and II vs the minuteman III which could thorw three MIRV at hardended targets.

The Atlas D, E & F, the Titan I and II as well as the Minuteman I all had a single warhead.  I am not sure, but I think that the Minuteman II had 3 MIRV's and the Minuteman III had even more.  The Peacekeeper that replaced about half of the Minuteman missiles had up to 10 MIRV's.  The Atlas F that I worked on in '64-'65 had the ability to store two separate targets in the guidance system, but the launch crew had to select either A or B before launch.

It is really amusing to me to think about the computer that was an integral part of the guidance system on the Atlas.  It was a big cube, about 3 feet on each side that weighed a couple hundred pounds and all it could do was add, subtract and multiply.  There were 3 accelerometers in the gyro platform that fed information for each of the 3 axis (pitch, roll & yaw), to the computer and it figured out where the missile was at that moment and where the warhead would impact if cut loose right then.  When the results of those calculations got to a certain point, the BECO signal was sent for Booster Engine Cut Off and the skirt with the two booster engines was separated from the rest of the missile.  A little further into the flight, the SECO signal for Sustainer Engine Cut Off was sent and then when the computer figured the RV would impact close to the target coordinates, VECO or Vernier Engine Cut Off was sent, the arming signal was sent to the RV and it separated from the missile and went it's merry way.  If any of those events did not occur within a certain time frame after launch, the arming signal was blocked and you wound up with a very expensive rock.

An Atlas moments after launch.

An Atlas F without RV, sticking it's nose out of the silo.

An Atlas F at an operational silo.  It looks ready to launch, but it is probably just a PLX or Propellant Loading Exercise with a dummy RV.

Darwin, O.F. 

Wow Darwin, i dont know how i missed this 1st time round. I love wierd, strange and odd. This ticks all the boxes. It looks like it was a Pig as well. Looking at the finished pictures youd never guess you had any issues with it. Top marks fella. I love it.

...Guy

Now that certainly is different!  You did an excellent job, especially considering the difficulties that you had with the parts fit.

Grandma L

I finally got this thing beat into some semblence of a decent model.  As noted in the earlier posts, I had a LOT of trouble just getting the basic pieces lined up and glued together.  Changes to the kit include:
1. Move the LOX fill & drain pipe from the belly to the top
2. Add the LOX overflow vent to the RV collar
3. Add the reinforcing ring around the base of the RV collar
4. Reshape the RV collar & remove the ribs
5. Reshape the vernier engine nozzles
6. Correct, or at least try, the grossly misaligned mating ring between the tank section and the skirt section.
7. Smooth out extremely rough surfaces and remove assorted small blobs of resin.

8. Cobble together all of the decal markings from the spares box. The only thing in the kit was two very undersized national markings

The Re-entry Vehicle or Warhead contained the 1.4 MegaTon nuclear weapon inside a metal shell and was covered with a white ablative coating. (similar to the white coating on the X-15 for a few flights).  The RV adaptor collar was made of aluminum and had the LOX overflow vent coming out the side.  Photos of a fully fueled Atlas show a large plume of what looks like smoke coming out this vent. 
The main body or tank section was made of stainless steel and appeared as a polished surface.  The pointed equipment pods on the sides and the covers over the engines were made of very heavy fiberglass and painted aluminum color.  The main portion of the skirt was aluminum and the engine bells were a metal alloy that looked like magnesium.  The large, bent tube coming out the bottom of the skirt was the RP-1 (fuel) fill and drain valve.  Comments welcome, pro or con.

Darwin, O.F.

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More photos of the Atlas ICBM.

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Very compelling project!

Super-Neat-O! I'd sure like to see it finished...

I must say, Darwin, you certainly qualify for the title of "Master Modeler"! I have had similar experiences with short run kits that often ended up being introduced to the wall paper at near Mach 1! I often wondered what Anigrand quality was like, now I know!   At any rate, you are certainly whipping the beast into submission, my hat is off to you!

Brian  

You don't see one of those every day on the boards, and judging by the fit I can see why.

Great to see something totally different, and you look like you've mastered that bad boy!

Karl