Word: klaxons
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...reporting for alert duty, Lieut. Colonel Dante Bulli and his crew in effect braced themselves at the end of a taut, outstretched spring. The trigger was the rasping sound of a klaxon horn. At any moment, that horn might blow. It could mean that a Soviet nose cone was on its way carrying destruction, and that there were 15 minutes in which to get off the ground and head for preassigned Soviet targets. There would be no time for second thoughts, no room for second-guessing as to whether some button-pusher was running a test. To the SAC alert...
...uuggghha! The Bulli crew was lounging amiably at 11 a.m. one day last week when came the blood-curdling aa-oo-uuggghha! of the klaxon that pierces ears and reverberates in stomachs. Bulli and his men exploded from the molehole and raced for their plane. Copilot Richard Franz, 40, scampered up the forward ladder, and started to snap switches. Pilot Bulli clambered after him, swung his leg over the throttle quadrant, taking care not to upset switches or move dials...
...roll when he starts his engines.) Bulli flicked on his engine switches. No. 3 fired up, then No. 4; he gangbarred the other six simultaneously. In 45 seconds, all eight fires were roaring. Outside, crewmen hustled around disconnecting external power units. At exactly 11:04-four minutes after the klaxon-Bulli was ready for taxiing. If command post should signal a Coco alert, Bulli would start rolling for the runway. A call of Juliet or Romeo would send him into the air by 11:07 (well ahead of the 15-minute maximum requirement) to 40,000 feet-plus...
...change in a plane's ground alert status is regarded as "uncocking" and lessens the alert capability. Alert planes returning from a practice mission would be in no shape for a real-life turn-around to actual war missions: if they were in the landing pattern when the klaxon sounded the real thing, they would have to be refueled and their crews would need rest. These planes are front-line sentries; to take them into the air would be like ordering front-line combat troops to empty their pieces in target practice...
Nevertheless, SAC crews play their deadly game of Beat the Clock as if each alert were the real thing. And when they get the sign-off, they return to their moleholes to await again the sound of that eerie klaxon; it could come again in five minutes or five hours. Usually, though, the alert crews can count on enough time to clean up. "The only time you dare take a shower," says one pilot, "is right after an alert. Some day they'll fool us and blow the horn again just after we get back...