Comments | sparc77: My second true love

sparc77

My second true love

Jul 13, 2009 22:32

After leaving my first true love and some of the best friends anyone could ask for, I found myself falling for this baby. She and I spent three happy years together.

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Is there anything more lovely than Checkmate, my old alert bird, with a pair of 6-packs (ALCMs) under each wing and a rotary launcher of SRAMs in the bay behind 4 "crowd pleasers". ( Read more... )

me, memories

Comments 2

cool anonymous July 14 2009, 15:42:25 UTC

What's a "crowd pleaser"?

Re: cool sparc77 July 14 2009, 22:53:46 UTC

A "crowd pleaser" is a nuclear device in the multi-megaton range. ALCM (Air Launch Cruise Missiles) and SRAM (Short Range Attack Missiles) only carried warheads in the 100 kiloton range.

The nickname is taken from 4th of July fireworks celebrations where the really big and complex explosions coaxed oohs and aahs from the crowd and were dubbed "crowd pleasers".

So as you can imagine, 2 sixpacks (meaning 6 ALCMs under each wing) a rotary launcher (8 SRAMs) and 4 crowd pleasers adds up to 24 nukes per alert bird. At Barksdale in 1988 when (I got out of the USAF) we had 9 birds on alert 24/365. And that was just 1 bomber base. If you add all the other bomber bases + ICBMs & boomers (submarines), well....you get the picture. No one will ever doubt that SAC was armed to the teeth.