Toto - Africa (Official HD Video)

Lt Col John (Jack) Christensen did your electronic warfare officer have to put the coordinates inside the hound dog missile? The missile was developed in late 50s so I wonder how it was programmed when you didn't really have memory to speak of? Not sure if this is your lane of expertise. This is before GPS so it must have had some kind of gyro system to get the missile to its Target. I remember I had a company Commander and his dad used to go to kwajalein Island to watch a missile try to hit a water tower with a typical Air Force checkerboard markings on it. Back then, I guess they were trying to work on the accuracy and see if the missile could actually hit the water tower. Now I know you can do that or even which window can be chosen on an apartment building like they showed during Desert Storm with the Tomahawk Cruise missiles.

Lt Col John (Jack) Christensen correction, I mean Warheads. When I was in Boy Scouts in the mid-1970s, we had a scoutmaster who was a lieutenant colonel in the Air Force Reserve and he took us to Vandenberg Air Force Base. We were able to go view a solid fuel rocket booster that was being maintained and we had to take off watches or anything that could produce static electricity and I remember the fish smell or the funny smell of the solid fuel. Later, he took us to Edwards Air Force Base and we were able to see the Thunderbirds fly. I took pictures with my Kodak 126 camera and I saw a B-52 with the lifting body that you see at the very beginning of the TV series Six Million Dollar Man. I still have that picture somewhere in one of my photo albums. I remember one night we stepped outside and it was hot as hell and another night we we're able to sleep in the barracks. It's great when you have a scoutmaster who was an 05 and was able to pull strings like that.

LTC (Join to see) I'm going to bring Sgt (Join to see) into this conversation since he fixed that stuff, I just launched it. The navigator team did all the programming and did enter target info. A lengthy programming time was required that literally had the missile engines running off aircraft fuel and the missile completely powered up. This was required to get the missile gyros up and running, as I recall it was a minimum of one hour before planned launch. The training programming sorties were a real bear because the slightest turn or turbulance during the initial programming would cause the gyros to tumble and you would have to start all over again. I don't remember all the details but we could do simulated launches against bomb scoring sites where the missile gave us the steering signals. Scores were used by the missile maintenance team and guys like Kerry to know what tweaks needed to me made to the missile gyros and navigation system. Got to remember that the whole missile was analog technology so there were many things that could/would go wrong.

Lt Col John (Jack) Christensen thank you for the bottom line up front summary of how the system works.

Glad you enjoyed it, Jack!