The shot detonated on schedule and the atomic cloud began to climb,
The "beeper" pilots turned their drones off station, aimed them at the
cloud, setthem on automatic pilot, and turned them loose, then the
control aircraft raced around the cloud to retrieve the drones on the
other side, Similar to Operation CROSSROADS, this time, however, the
control aircraft turned their drones around again aimed at the cloud.
On the third penetration, five of the seven drones made contact with
the cloud, bat the dronesat 18,000 and 20,000 feet did not penetrate
because the "beeper" pilots could not locate any portion of the cloud at
their altitude,
ne
The seven drones landed safely at Eniwetok, where the Atomic Energy
Laboratory.
Preliminary investigationindicated that the weakest sample
collected on X RAY was stronger than any taken during Operation crossroans ,°
YOKE Shot.
YOKE Shot was detonated on 1 May 1948,
Drone operations
were a repetition of X RAY with the exception of a drone flying at 20,000
feet altitude, After arriving on station, the B-17drone at 20,000 feet
was pulled out of its position and sent to 30,000 feet altitude, directly
over the detamation.,
detonation.
A camera in the drone exposed a picture just at
When the shock wave hit the drone, it was not damaged, but
the “beeper* pilot had some moments of control difficulty. ‘Colonel
Kilgore recommended to the air conmander that this drone be withdrawn
from sampling,
The other seven drones collected their samples on three
passes and returned to Eniwetok,
These samples were even better” than the
ones collected previously, 65
20
APWLHO
SWEH=2-003);
aA
Ot ay
me
Commission crews removed the samples and started for Los Alamos Scientific