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an Eclair 35 mm motion picture camera.
The RB-36 was positioned sixty
:
miles from Ground Zero for the purpose of photographing cloud phenomenol-
ogy.
For approximately ten minutes after the shot it orbited at 35,000
to 40,000 feet altitude.
The C-54's, with a bank of cameras located in
the cargo entrance, took fireball and cloud rise and growth photography
from altitudes of 10,000, 12,000 and 14,000 feet and a distance of about
eighty miles.
The C-54's took pictures from Time Zero until the cloud
lost its identity.
These aircraft were on loan from MATS and were modi-
fied at Norton AFB, California, to accept camera racks and associated
equipment from Air Force Lookout Mountain Photographic Laboratory.
The
B-50 took radar scope pictures from distances of fifteen to thirty miles
at 30,000 feet for study of indirect bomb damage assessment and base
surge characteristics.
=
This information was then added to that gained
from ground photography performed by Lookout Mountain Laboratory.
On
selected occasions, the SAC IBDA B-50's photographed thecrater after
completing their IBDA rua.
Approximately forty aircraft were airborne in the shot area for
each detonation.
Since each nuclear burst took place before daylight,
careful aircraft control was necessary.
Therefore two radar control
centers were operated, one at Eniwetok and the other aboard the USS ESTES
at Bikini.
Under continuous radar control and surveillance, each air
craft was brought from Eniwetok to Bikini, positioned for its role in the
shot, and then returned to Eniwetok. Throughout the mission all aircraft
-. were in constant communication with the control centers and received
their instructions through this system.
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AFWL/HO
eat
57