RadioBanter - View Single Post

August 12th 03, 03:55 AM

In article , wrote:

John Byrns wrote:
In article , wrote:

Trying to identify a vacuum tube based missle seeker head.

Can anyone ID this? The box said "NIKE AJAX."

I would
love to hear more about it if anyone knows? With all those "submini"
tubes, it looks a little like one of Robert's "Engineering what ifs" gone
awry. Did the "NIKE AJAX" actually use a "seeker head", or was it steered
to the target by control signals from the ground? I know there were
several very different incarnations of the "NIKE" missile, but I have no
idea what the operational differences were?

Three - Ajax, Hercules and Zeus. All were ground directed (by RADAR) to
target. The electronics on board received the radio control signals and
used that to actuate the control surfaces as directed. The various
versions were all similar - with improving speed, range, accuracy, etc.

I thought they were directed from the ground. The "Technical Manual" at
the link George posted looks interesting, although I have only just gotten
started with reading it. It is definitely boatanchor technology. With
all those "moving parts" in the ground based guidance system I wonder how
they were able to get enough accuracy to shoot anything down? When I was
growing up in the 1950's, some SAC F-102s were based at the local Air
Force base, I think the F-102s were another 1950's system designed to
shoot down Russian bombers. I have a book buried somewhere around here
that I bought in the early 1970's, which claimed that the missiles used on
the F-102 had nuclear warheads to make up for the lack of accuracy
provided by the 1950's technology.

Brings back memories of the 1950s, when "NIKE" missile bases ringed many
of our larger cities. I wonder when they were decommissioned, seems like
they were gone by the mid 1960s at the latest?

More like mid 70's. Here is a picture of one (Hercules version) from
Lynwood, CA - Memorial Day 1963 (right in your back yard, Jeff!). A
friend of mine (still living) was in the parade - as he was in the
National Guard at the time - and his unit was one of the units in the
parade that day. A few years later he took us to Camp Roberts - where
we got to ride in jeeps, tanks, and all manner of neat stuff- neat guy!

I occasionally passed by a Nike site in the late 1950's, which seemed to
have disappeared by the early 1960's. In 1969 I moved into an apartment
that was a couple of miles down the road from a former Nike base, all that
was left of the Nike installation at that time were the radar's, and the
National Guard, which I think continues to use the site even today,
although the radar's are long gone.

Regards,

John Byrns

Surf my web pages at, http://users.rcn.com/jbyrns/