The Titan Missile System

Someone has put a really interesting series together on the Titan missile system spread through three states: Arizona, Kansas, and Arkansas.

For you tech geeks like me, this is an amazing construction effort using materials meant to withstand an atomic blast. The silo closure door alone took 34 tons of welding rod.

I joined a Titan crew at 23 in 1979. Two years later, I was given my own crew. Except for one site in Green Valley Arizona that is thankfully a museum now, all the other sites were destroyed in accordance with SALT II (Strategic Arms Limitation Talks) so that they could never be used again.

I pulled alert a few times at the museum site but my home site was about ten miles away, isolated at the foot of a mountain range in the beautiful Sonoran Desert, coincidentally at the entrance to a nature preserve in Madera Canyon. As Tucson grew, some sites became less isolated. One was across the street from a private grade school. Another was within view of the Stuckey's on I-10 near Benson, AZ. The museum site was surrounded by homes and a Circle K convenience store was across the highway. Few knew the missile sites were there.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RXpODmlXZZE

Sean,

Great story. So 60's, like something off the "Wonder Years." LOL...

I actually enjoyed it because I hoped to use it as a stepping stone to flying. I was only there two years before heading to Willy. Given the choice between Titan and Minuteman, at least I could see my missile: It lived down the hallway. Minuteman crews were a minimum of ten miles from their unmanned Launch Facilities (LF's). We called them "phone operators." (You have to be old to understand that label...)

The geek part of me loved the technical details of how the site was made, and worked...

The silo closure door weighed a million and a half pounds. It was held closed by four massive steel T-locks and was designed to withstand a nearby nuclear blast. The T-locks would unlock and jack screws would jack the door about 1 foot and roll it back out of the way in under 14 seconds, all the while covered with 15 feet of blast debris. What massive motor could be expected to do the impossible? A five cylinder radial powered by 8 20,000 psi accumulators. The radial was geared down and the whole mechanism was mechanical.

Unbelievable.

Mic,

I left because I got selected for flight training. They announced the close-down a couple years after I left.

The mechanical items in the site worked nearly flawlessly for the 20+ years they were operational. I mentioned the killer diesel generators (hung from the ceiling) but sadly, I have learned they were too heavy to get out of the sites so most got buried. What a waste.

Skeets,

Yeah, some of the sites might have been pretty easy to convert, at least into ranges. Ones like this that were under water for 30 years look like ship wrecks. So sad...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1rQox9j1oI

Here is the old Titan I site that was only operational for three years! The cost must have been enormous. The Titan I was rushed into service but had to be fueled before launch, taking almost an hour. The Titan II was airborne less than 60 seconds after key turn.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=19J8FSIM4nE

Len,

That is what blew me away. The craftsmanship on those facilities was amazing. The concrete finishing was superb. Not a crack, even today. And as I mentioned earlier, everything hung from the wall or ceiling. Including the floors of the command center and the missile. The idea was to shock isolate everything in case of a nearby nuclear detonation (NUDET).

In this Control Center pic, back by the wall, you can see one of six enormous spring assemblies that the two upper floor levels were hung from. You could put your back against the wall and push with all your might on these springs and the floor would slowly start swaying...



The missile weighing over 330,000 lbs was bolted to a box frame thrust mount ring that hung from the walls of the launch duct on 4 huge shock absorbers. Horizontally, mounted to this ring were 8 smaller shock absorbers that would let me missile move in a NUDET. These 8 would lock down during the launch sequence to make sure the missile was stationary prior to liftoff. It had to withstand the 440,000 lbs of thrust from the motors as they fired off and tried to rip the thrust mount skyward.

When the engines hit 100% the thrust mount bolts explosively blew and the missile was airborne. It would accelerate to 60 mph in it's length. The only ICBM that was man-rated, the Titan II flew all the Gemini missions. The astronauts all said the Titan flights were the "E-Ticket" ride of the space program. Lifting off at nearly 2 G, by first stage burnout at just over 2 minutes, the acceleration had reached 8 Gs. The Saturn or the Space Shuttle were a bus ride compared to 8 Gs.

Look way at the bottom of the missile: The thrust mount is the big ring it is sitting on. On the left, you can see one of four shock mounts the ring hangs on...



Oh, and right before main engine start, 200,000 gallons of water would start spraying into the launch duct under the engines. Without the water, the decibel level would shake the airframe to bits. They found water turning to steam saved the missile while in the launch tube. All that water was in a tank mounted to the wall -three stories high. The steam is visible in pictures of a launch venting from the launch duct as it lifts off. In some launch pictures you see red color which is Hydrazine and will melt skin on contact...



Mickey,

I flew the Nav Bus (T-43A or Boeing 737) and then the "Four-Fanned Trash Can", The C-130.

H-Models out of lovely Dyess, TX.

We had some great guys in the Herk world. The whole crew would work together to get the mission complete. Not a lot of room for egos. Guys lived and died by their hands. No covering for bad hands. The C-130 was the most dangerous aircraft I ever flew, and that was during peacetime. In my first 8 years at the airline, they lost 8 130's, including the crews.

In the late 80's, our '74 models were the newest Herks in operation. The E-Models were early 60's airframes that had seen really hard duty their whole life. When the Herk was first put into service, people thought they were indestructible. They quickly found out that was not true.

I drink coffee with a former C-7 pilot who transitioned into the Herk when it came on line in Vietnam. They were breaking them left and right.

We nearly lost two planes while I was at Dyess. The only H model crash I know of is a pilot who tried to out-climb a mountain -and lost. The rest were E models. Props hung instead of reversing. Engine mounts failed taking the engine and wing leading edge off with it. Bad LAPES in front of cameras. All while on training events.

The J Model had teething pains of its own. Took it a couple three years to get operationally certified and I guess they have the bugs out now. The jury is still out on the fuse stretch. Can the wing handle the extra stress for its projected life? Time will tell. At least they upgraded the systems alleviating the need for a Flight Engineer and Navigator. Our H models had the same autopilot the B-29 had. Steam gauges. Little in the way of navigation aids. The J has everything a modern airliner has. That gives our guys a better chance at survival.

Brother Skeets,

Not sure what those would have been. Might have been an Atlas. Those sites were smaller and the site was relatively "soft" with the missile laying horizontal under a thin metal door. The Atlas had little structural strength and relied on nitrogen pressure to keep it inflated until erected vertical, then it was fueled.

The Titan I was only at five locations: CA, ID, CO. The Titan II at three: AZ, KS, AR. Minutemen silos are all over the north central and northwest farm locations. If memory serves me, they managed to retrofit most, if not all of the Minuteman silos to fit the newer and bigger versions. The big Peacekeeper required all new facilities though.

The only missiles still operational are the Minuteman III and the Peacekeepers.

Just found this on the original Titan I missile system. New info I did not know and in the 4th installment, the tour underground is mind blowing...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HeJjxu2p8BA