Inhabited Missile

Aircraft designers look forward to the day when all interceptors will be "uninhabited"--i.e., rise without pilots to guide them and attack invading bombers by remote electronic control. Presumably, such interceptors will be launched like rockets and so will not need runways to get into the air. Interceptors inhabited by pilots are still in fashion, but last week the Air Force demonstrated at Edwards Air Force Base (see cut) that they can be launched like rockets without benefit of runway. This is considered important in cases where advance bases are lacking or have been destroyed by the enemy.

The 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.

For the trailer takeoff, an F-84 Thunderjet is equipped with a big "booster bottle" (solid propellant rocket) fixed under its tail. The plane is placed on the trailer and the pilot climbs aboard and buttons himself in. The trailer's arms unfold and tilt the nose upward. Then the pilot starts the jet engine. When it is turning at 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.

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