XI¥Y
evaluated current operational procedures, techniques, and equipment used
in accomplishing the data phase of indirect bomb damage assessment of
muclear weapons.
To accomplish this mission, 3 B-l7 aircraft, 3 combat
crews, and 36 support personnel participated in REDWING,
Each aircraft
had cameras to photograph bomb burst and fireball, with instruments to
determine yield, and with equipment to determine precise aircraft speed
and range,
The Wright Air Development Center Weapons Effect Element used seven
aircraft in pursuing its mission:
an F-10lA, and two F-8F,
a B-l7E, an
RB-52B, a B-66B, a B-57B,
One of the two F-8LF aircraft was a capabilities”
aircraft; the other was a side loads effect aircraft,
The Early Penetration Element utilized pilots and B-57B aircraft from
the 3hSth Bombardment Group and the hOSth Bombardment Group, Langley Air
Force Base, Virginia, and from the 61st Bombardment Group, Blytheville.
Air Force Base, Arkansas,
Command.
These groups belonged to the Tactical Air
Their mission was the securing of information by early penetration
of nuclear clouds at high altitudes,
The Navy Effects Element used an A3C and a P2V aircraft furnished by
the Naval Air Special Weapons Facility, Kirtland Air Force Base, and
basically concerned itself with the determination of response of aircraft
structures to thermonuclear explosions,
The Ionospheric Element, a detachment from the Air Force Cambridge
Research Center, consisted of 21 personnel and a specially instrumented
JC-97 aircraft.
The plane had the only airborne ionospheric recorder in
269
AFWL/HO
SWEH ~2-CO3L,