-
IX
Aircraft designated as available for the operation were sixteen B-57
(ten B-57B of the 926th Test Squadron (Sampling) and six B-S57D from the
Strategic Air Command);
for effects projects;
one B-52 from Wright Air Development Center,
two B-36 from the Special Weapons Center, for
the very high altitude-ultra high altitude projects;
Cambridge Research Center, for ionospheric studies;
one C-97 from
two AMD, two FJ and
one P2¥ from Naval Air Special Weapons Facility at Kirtland Air Force Base,
for effects and study projects and three B-7 from Strategic Air Comnand,
for indirect bomb damage assessment, operating out of Guam,
12
Although plans called. for having the six B-57D aircraft on hand for _
cloud sampling, project officials encountered difficulties in obtaining
modifications and sampling tanks,
As a result, six of the eleven F-8)
aircraft scheduled for destruction were being held intact should the
B-S7D aircraft not be completed in time,
13
The scientist, Philip R..
Moore, J-11, Los Alamos, described these difficulties even after approval
for the planes had been secured:
* 1h
At a big conference at the Martin plant in Baltimore,
we learned that Martin simply wasn't going to meet the
deadline on either the modifications or the sampling tanks,
the contracts for which they had accepted,
Immediately we
determined the true situation with Martin, we searched
other sources for modification and production. Although
WarnereRobins Air Materiel Conmand was already modifying
four B-57B aircraft for the sampling operation, they
agreed to take over the modifications of the B-57D
aircraft as well, promising deadline delivery,
As LASL had designed the sampling tanks, and they
*See Suitable Sampling Aircraft Chapter, infra,
179
APH
SWEH-2-003h,