Any pilots ever seen missile lauches?

[stevepaa]

The US routinely tests submarine lauched ICBMs. Any pilots ever seen them?

[Jims5543]

I know this does not apply. I used to live in Cape Canaverl 1 block off the ocean and could see them launch offshore quite often.

I was screwing around with my telescope one day and had a Nuclear Sub surface right in my scope once as well. I was aiming for an offshore bouy that I could watch bob in the tide.

I cannot count how mant times I was shook out of bed by "top secret" launches that would set off every car alarm in the area at 2 in the morning. It was like daytime when those suckers launched.

I miss living in Cape Canaveral, I felt like I was living history every day.

**edit** too many Yuengling's!! off to bed... at least my back is not hurting tonight!!

[M.D. Holloway]

Jim,
I did work with Johnson Control back in the mid nineties on pad 43 (I think it was 43?) Anyway, the one the shuttle would blast from. We (GE) had invented an ablative coating to go on the concrete that would sustain 5 launches before it had to reapplied. WQithout it, the rockets would melt the concrete.

My Brother has a vacation place on Cocoa Beach. We must have seen at least 10 Atlas rocket launches and 3 Shuttle launches. A fantastic thing.

It is interesting, the power is amazing but if the conditions are right you can see two contrails, one is a thermal and the other an exhaust. The exhaust contrail will float but the thermal contrail is arrow straight and stays that way.

The TV station used to broadcast any launch. Haven't been there is years. Do they still do that with the other rockets?

[Joeaksa]

No but bet its a interesting sight!

Joe A

[rcecale]

Back in the early 80's, just after we started flying F/A-18 Hormets, my squadron sent a small group of us to Adak, Alaska for a two week deployment. Our mission was to fly escort for Tomahawk missiles that the Navy was conducting some tests on.

Pilots would fly out to the launch area where the Navy was waiting to launch them. They had to aim them back towards the US because of the close proximity of the USSR. Firing in the opposite direction could have been construed as an act of war.

Anyway, I saw some of the photos our pilots took of the airborne missiles....some pretty cool shots. They had a few 'episodes' with some Soviet pilots, but nothing really to speak of.

Something I found amusing at the time was that, since the Soviets were made aware of the presence of our Hornets, there was no doubt they would be trying to find out how many we had on station. The Sea-Bees were tasked with making life-sized replicas out of 3/4 inch plywood. On the ground, these things were obvious conterfeits, but from their aerial photography, it looked as though we had 2 full squadrons there.

These things were on wheels, so they would tow them around and park them in different locations throughout the day. There would always be several inside an otherwise un-used hangar, to make it look as tough they may be out flying missions somewhere.

Must have made the Soviets a bit nervous having 2 full squadrons so close!

Randy

[rattlsnak]

No missles, but ive seen the shuttle go up from 100 miles away and even at 30,000ft. it was VERY impressive.

[stevepaa]

Fired one last Friday off Florida coast. Anyone see it?

[Grezdlitn]

I was passing the southern end of White Sands missle range last October enroute to Las Cruces. I was at 11500 ft. when out of the corner of my eye I saw a cloud of smoke on the ground and then what appeared to be a silver telephone pole streak skyward.
The hole event lasted about 3 seconds. I was glad I was where I was supposed to be and had not strayed over the range.