IX

were LASL's responsibility, we immediately sought a
contractor who could produce them. Having previous

experience with Fletcher Aircraft of Rosemont, California,
we sought their aid and they accepted the contract.

Shortly, we realized that they had not assigned a single
engineer to the project, so we cancelled the contract and
split the tank procurement into two separate contracts,
Producing the section in front of the filter paper was

given to specialists in working with stainless steel-~
Solar Aircraft of San Diego. The portion in the rear
of the filter paper was accepted by Century Engineers

in Burbank,

Both outfits came through by assigning crews for
round-the-clock-work and the first pair of tanks for

operational testing arrived at Kirtland one week before

the 926th was scheduled to depart for the proving ground.
Immediately the pilots started testing operations and

-

vibration tests were performed by the 950th Test Group
(Nuclear),

Despite the terrific work load already on the 926th

because of packing requirements for the test, they took

on the additional testing missions, worked day and night

through that entire week, and detected aerodynamic trouble

in the tanks, A vortex effect developed behind the pylon housing;
this hammered at the tank tail section so that it cracked.
An on-the-spot modification was made, the tanks retested
and the modification proved successful,

Orders were sent to

Century Engineers to similarly modify all tanks under
production or already produced and the tanks gave their
anticipated service life throughout subsequent tests.

Meantime at Wamer-Robins, modifications crews were

also working day and night and they too succeeded in meeting

the deadline. Both accomplishments were excellent and far
above the level of production ordinarily achieved.

Althouptr not associated with manned aircraft sampling

of nuclear clouds, an attempt to sample by use of rockets
was made during GREENHOUSE, The five-inch rockets were

fired from one island, were supposed to pierce the nuclear
cloud and land on a third island.

excellent promise.

Preliminary tests showed

But when the actual detonation occurred,

the shock wave deflected the rockets and most of them landed
in the ocean, We recovered some nose cones, tut generally
so mich time was lost in locating them and in digging for

180

APWL/HO

SWEH~2-003),

2"

Select target paragraph3