- Air Force participation in the air-to-air rocket experiment will
include firing of the rocket from a manned aircraft, as well ag
support by innumerable types of aircraft from various Air Force
commands,
‘
‘
Support activities include pre-shot weather missions, documentary aerial photography, radiological surveys, cloud sampling,
cloud tracking, and air control, These activities are carried out
by aircraft of the Air Research and Development Command, Tactical
Air Command, Strategic Air Command, Air Training Command, and the
Air Pictorial Charting Service,
’
Training activities include flights through the nuclear cloud
by the Air National Guard and Air Defense Command for crew famili-
arization with aerial effects of atcmiz detcnations,
The majority of these aircraft stage out of Indian Springs Air
Force Base, Nevada, a unit of the Air Force Speciai Weapons Center
at Kirtland Air Force Base, New Mexico, The Spesial Weapons Center,
commanded by Brigadier General William M. Canterbury, is one of ten
cemers under the Air Research and Development Command, and has
supported the AEC in both continental ard overseas tests since
Cperation Crossroads in 1945,
13,
CIVIL EFFECTS EXPERIMENTS
Civil Effects Organization
The Civil Effects Test Group of the Nevada Test Organization
is sponsored principally by the Atomic Energy Commission and the
Federal Civil Defense Administration, but other Governnent agencies,
some private industrial groups, and twe foreign rations have projects
in its program.
The scientific and technical studies are comprised of ten programs, 54 projects, and about 200 shot participations involving individual experiments, and require at NTS a peak population of about
400 scientific and staff persennel, All projects are reviewed by
appropriate scientific and technical test screening and planning
committees before accepzance for field testing, and are coordinated
with the military effects tests.
The Civil Effecys Pregram stems from a4 continuing need for upto-date information on the effects from weapons as they are develcped.
Continental test afford unusually good cpportunities to verify in
the field various theoretical concepts and laboratory programs
which are directed toward complete knowledge of the possible effects
of nuclear detonations on man,
.
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