Word: launcher
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...trick is done with a massive trailer that the Air Force calls a "zero length launcher." Normally used to launch Martin Matador guided missiles, the trailer has folding. steel arms that slant the missile upward so its powerful rocket motors can skim it into the air. The same apparatus, only slightly modified, has been found to work with full-size, inhabited jet planes...
...full power, an enormous flame and a cloud of smoke spurt out of the booster bottle. In a few seconds the plane is airborne. The exhausted rocket drops off, and the pilot proceeds. His sudden departure resembles a scene from a space-flight movie, and the ground around the launcher is overcast with smoke, but at no time does the pilot experience more than a moderate four "Gs" of acceleration...
Among these is the "Honest John," already in the hands of troops. Mounted on a highly mobile, self-propelled launcher...
...Navy told how it solves the target problem with Pogo, a cheap gadget developed at New Mexico College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts. When the control center at White Sands Proving Ground wants a target for its deadly missiles to kill, it signals the crew of a target launcher parked out on the desert. A small, solid propellant rocket roars into the sky. When it reaches 40,000 feet or higher, a spring pushes its nose off, releasing a parachute whose silk is covered with a thin film of silver. The silver reflects radar waves like the skin...
...Missile-Launcher. Perhaps their most important mission will be as missile-launchers. There is certainly some doubt that an aircraft carrier can approach an enemy-held coast and survive concentrated attack by land-based airplanes armed with atomic bombs. The nuclear submarine can. It can cruise to the enemy coast submerged, rise to the surface briefly at night, launch its atom-armed missiles at short range and cruise away under water. It is probable that some missiles can actually be launched from beneath the surface. A missile-launcher of this type would be well-nigh undetectable...