North Carolina nearly nuked.

@parados,

Quote:

How could electricity make it into a circuit without a specific switch being thrown by a crewman? I can think of numerous ways but it seems Bill's universe works differently from mine.

I guess your universe does not include 33 years of designing and troubleshooting electronic circuits for a living.

1 Reply

@BillRM,

My God Bill... you have 33 years and never had a short in any circuit? That's amazing. How did you do it?

1 Reply

@Walter Hinteler,

You'll have to ask him. I just know what I learned and practiced while in the USAF.

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@cicerone imposter,

I designed this patch for our squadron at Walker AFB. I just happened to locate this while searching for information on the base a few months ago.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/41506766@N07/9970949915/

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@cicerone imposter,

Well, "entry" engineers at Sandia must have "advanced science and engineering degrees".

1 Reply

@Walter Hinteler,

I don't care what kind of degrees they posses. I can only relate what "I know" from my own experience.

Those "scientists" have made mistakes on the manuals they prepared for our use.
I identified several, and reported them to my boss.

Scientists are also known to make mistakes.

1 Reply

@cicerone imposter,

To test photo sharing; this url seems to work.
http://www.dropshots.com/imposter222#date/2013-06-26/17:37:38

I designed this patch while stationed at Walker AFB back in the late fifties. I only discovered this patch when I did a search on the base earlier this year, and was surprised to see this patch displayed.

1 Reply

@cicerone imposter,

A final word on this issue. A nuclear bomb must be "set" before it becomes a nuclear bomb. The uranium must be in place or it will result in a conventional weapon explosion. An accidental dropping will not have the uranium capsule in place. Nuclear weapons work on implosion.

I defy any scientist to refute this claim.

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@parados,

I never had the kind of failure that would cause a very very complex system to function in the manner this bomb is claimed to had function or almost function.

A can see any point failure keeping such a bomb from going off but not causing it to go off.

You would need complete idiots to design such a bomb that would go off under any condition due to the break up of the bomber carrying it.

Hell even the former USSR never known for their smooth engineering skills never had such a device going off.

1 Reply

Bill's right because an impact cannot short a switch into a closed position.

Joe(Uh, wait a minute, that happens ALL the time.)Nation

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@BillRM,

Geez Bill, the bomb didn't go off. However it appears several of the systems designed to set it off did function in the way they were supposed to in order to trigger the device.

Quote:

A can see any point failure keeping such a bomb from going off but not causing it to go off.

Gosh and an electronic device would never function if the switch meant to turn it on was shorted. You are so smart Bill, I wonder why you don't just post the schematic for the bomb so you can show how it can't work like you claim.

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@cicerone imposter,

Yes CI. It seems the US may have constantly had active nukes in the air at that time to deter the Soviets. They aren't much of a deterrent if they have no nuclear material.

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@Joe Nation,

Yes indeed and the design would call for one such switch to be the key for setting off the bomb or for that matter to have an important switch on a bomb that when it fail would fail in the go/on mode instead of the no-go/off mode!!!!!!!!

Once more it would take idiots to design such a bomb that would go off with a bomber break up.

An the very fact that there was tens of thousands such bombs being move around for decades by both the US and the USSR without such an event triggering a nuclear explosion seem proof enough that the design of such devices was not being done by idiots.

1 Reply

@BillRM,

BillRM wrote:

Yes indeed and the design would call for one such switch to be the key for setting off the bomb or for that matter to have an important switch on a bomb that when it fail would fail in the go/on mode instead of the no-go/off mode!!!!!!!!

Once more it would take idiots to design such a bomb that would go off with a bomber break up.

An the very fact that there was tens of thousands such bombs being move around for decades by both the US and the USSR without such an event triggering a nuclear explosion seem proof enough that the design of such devices was not being done by idiots.

Ummm...did you say YOU designed some of these devices, Bill?

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@parados,

Quote:

Yes CI. It seems the US may have constantly had active nukes in the air at that time to deter the Soviets. They aren't much of a deterrent if they have no nuclear material.

There was indeed such bombs being move around the country on training missions that did not have their nuclear cores in place.

One such bomb while over the US was drop after the bomber got into trouble and never found.

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@parados,

BTW, the accident in North Carolina was not the only accident with a-bombs loaded on an airplane.

Here's a whole list of "accidents" from Wiki.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_military_nuclear_accidents

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@Walter Hinteler,

Walter Hinteler wrote:

There was only one safety device left between the bomb and disaster: a switch known as a pre-arming ready-safe switch that could turn the bomb on and off through the normal operation of a 28-volt signal sent from the B-52's cockpit. But even that switch was known by nuclear safety experts to be deeply unreliable.

That's what I made a mistake about earlier. I'd assumed that they were saying the explosion was averted because the circuit failed.

Modern nukes are designed to do just that. There are circuits that are necessary for a bomb to go off, that are designed so that they will fail if the bomb suffers catastrophic damage.

However, what they are saying is that the explosion was averted because the circuit didn't fail.

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@BillRM,

BillRM wrote:

What engineer would design a nuclear weapon to power up when drop without the crew setting it to do so before hand!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I believe what they are saying is that, in the act of breaking apart, the disintegrating airplane's systems sent one of the bombs a "go" signal.

But there seems to be agreement from all the engineers that this bomb was a bad design so far as these safety systems were concerned.

BillRM wrote:

I question that any such bomb would be design to go off when it hit the ground as even from the first two bombs that was dropped on Japan they was set for an air bust at a few thousands feet.
You waste far far too must power of a nuke in having it going off at ground level.

Airbursts are a wonderful way to incinerate a population center. But groundbursts are often desired when attacking military bases.

Plus, even when a bomb is set on airburst, there is usually also a groundburst fuse active on the bomb, just in case the airburst fuse fails.

Even if what you really want is an airburst, if the airburst fuse fails and you have to choose between:

a) a groundburst, or

b) an intact bomb falling into the enemy's hands for dissection and inspection

.... option "A" is preferable.

1 Reply

@Setanta,

Quote from Walter's post.

Quote:

Quote:
From SkyNews.
Millions in Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia and New York were at risk.

Set wrote.
That had to have been written by a Brit. Where the hell do they think North Carolina is?

That sells to Europeans like candy, but lacks any sugar. Mr. Green

1 Reply

@cicerone imposter,

cicerone imposter wrote:

That sells to Europeans like candy, but lacks any sugar.

Might be so. But the reason for those headlines in various papers worldwide is based on a map engineered by American Institute of Physics historian Andrew Wellerstein

http://i1334.photobucket.com/albums/w641/Walter_Hinteler/c_zpsd50b6222.jpg

2 Replies

North Carolina nearly nuked.

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