"Tex Houston" wrote in message
...

"Kevin Brooks" wrote in message
...
That might have been a more applicable reason behind the larger warheads
you
found in the SAM's like Bomarc and Nike Hercules, but not in the case of
the
Genie, or especially in the case of the meager warhead yield of the
nuclear
Falcon. Genie had an assured destruction radius of something like 300
meters, IIRC--not likely to get a lot of aircraft that way, though it
does
kind of make it hard for the single aircraft you are shooting at to
evade
it
(and as it was unguided, no countermeasures could be effective against
it).
Falcon only had around one-sixth the yield of Genie.


People could (and did) stand under a Genie explosion. Your post reminded
of
the July 19, 1957 test where just that thing happened. The publicity shot
arranged by Colonel Barney Oldfield was famous at the time. I tried to
find
the best site on the web for a description but it appears to no longer be
there, just mentions of it.

The photos are in the latter of the two sites you provided links to--go to
"military", then the "Korea-NORAD" pages--you have to click on the rather
fancy righthand arrowpoints to page through the section, but you will
eventually get to them.

Brooks


On a sadder note I just found out my friend Barney died within the last
few
months. See

http://nebraska.statepaper.com/vnews.../3fe1a44fa2747
or http://www.oldfields.org/ .

Regards,

Tex Houston