A-4 Skyhawks Had These Crazy Thermal Shields To Protect Pilots From Nuclear Blasts - A-4 Skyhawks Had These Crazy Thermal Shields 2.jpg ...

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So much odd, but awesome tech came out of the Cold War. It seems like every day
I find something new that is equally fascinating and alarming about an era when
nuclear Armageddon seemed consistently eminent. The nimble little A-4 Skyhawk's
clamshell thermal shield is a great example of this.

The 'Scooter's' Thermal Anti-Radiation Heat Shield was fitted around the edges
of the rear portion of its notoriously cozy cockpit during nuclear missions. The
clamshell design could be pulled down, covering the pilot entirely, but allowing
them to still see the instrument panel and access the flight controls. The
system would not only keep the pilot from being blinded by the super-bright
flash of a nuclear explosion, but it would also give them shielding against the
high heat that resulted from it, and to a lesser extent, it would lower the
overall amount of other forms of radiation the they would be exposed to.

The shields were deployed operationally aboard aircraft carriers, along with
tactical nuclear gravity bombs that the Skyhawks would haul into a combat zone
and loft at targets before escaping the area as fast as possible. Lay-down and
medium to high altitude dive bombing methods were also available, but less
desirable, especially the latter. Here is a U.S. Navy video circa 1959 explain
how the subsonic A-4 would use each of these methods to deliver a nuclear
weapon:

https://youtu.be/IegvK4k-rng

The need to protect pilots from the bright and hot flashes of nuclear weapons
detonations resulted in a variety of solutions throughout the Cold War. These
included nuclear thermal curtains installed on aircraft like the B-52s and the
Polarized Lead Zirconium Titanate (PLZT, pronounced "plizzit") flash blindness
goggles introduced in the early 1980s for FB-111, B-52, KC-135, B-1, and
eventually B-52 crews. Today, the B-2 uses a temporarily installed fast-tinting
shield system mounted on its instrument panel dash that is based on technology
originally developed for the B-1B to protect its crew during nuclear missions.
You can read all about these wild contraptions in this past article of ours.


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