concluded that such signals are attenuated, but not 1o the extent that prior
theoretical calculations had predicted.

Program C: Airborne Measurements of Thermal and Electromagnetic
Phenomena
There were six projects in Program C: four investigating thermal
phenomena (Projects 8.2, 8.3, 8.4, and 8.5) and two studying electromagnetic
effects (Projects 6.10 and 6.13). Six aircraft were used, three equipped with
thermal instrumentation and three with electromagnetic equipment. All projects were successful on both shots.

For shot Teak there was a single thermal pulse lasting a few tenths of

a second. Most of this energy came from molecular emission bands rather
than from the blackbody radiation common to surface or near-surface bursts.
The infrared radiation was intense but brief--about 24sec in duration. The
maximum radius of the infrared fireball was almost 20 miles. The thermal
pulse from shot Orange showed some of the characteristics of a sea-level shot. There was some evidence of a minimum and a second maximum. Some
of the energy was radiated in a continuous spectrum, in addition to spectral
bands similar to those from Teak. The infrared emission lasted about 18
sec, and the infrared fireball radius reached a maximum of about 15 miles.
Radar echoes from the ionized cloud were received by two of the aircraft. Returns were observed on UHF band radarsfor a period of about an
hour for both Teak and Orange.
One of the aircraft also carried atmospheric sounding equipment and
measured disturbances of the ionosphere produced during both shots. It was
found that the electrical properties of the ionosphere were disturbed in excess of 4 hr out to distances of several hundred miles.
2.2

TASK UNIT 1, LASL PROGRAMS

Task Unit 1 carried out experiments to determine device performance,
to measure physical quantities of interest in weapon design, and to understand the mechanisms by which the various effects of the devices are produced. In Operation Hardtack new methods were used to determine the configuration of the active material during the reaction period.

Programs 10 and 18, Fireball Physics and Thermal Radiation

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Oscilloscopes and photomultiplierswith optical narrow pass filters were
used to record gamma-induced light from the air about two-stage devices.
Photomultipliers and oscilloscopes with high time resolution were used for
observations of narrow bands of the optical spectrum.
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