racing to the red light

I came across this public service announcement, evidently issued by the U.S. Air Force and Convair, a onetime producer of fighter aircraft (and “A Division of General Dynamics” as you can see in the poster):

Thanks to Vintage Ads and user spuzzlightyear for this find: http://vintage-ads.livejournal.com/3212546.html

Be assured, if that picture were to scale, that milkman would be cowering in fear on the ground, shattered milk bottles all around him.  Then again, anyone would have done the same; that would be a “low pass” if ever there was such a thing!  That lead plane appears to have barely cleared the roof of the house in the background.  OK, it probably was not meant to be scale, but it’s funny to imagine.

(As an aside, we have been out in the desert up on a small plateau surveying the landscape, and have had fighters come screaming right over us.  It is terrifying – it’s like the biggest bird you ever saw came swooping down at you so fast that you never saw nor heard them coming.  It flashes over you and then it’s gone, and a split second later a deafening roar as the sounds catches up.  It’s quite terrifying as you can probably imagine.)

The caption, for those of you having a hard time reading it, reads (their emphasis):

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Freedom Has a New Sound !

All over America these days the blast of supersonic flight is shattering the old familiar sounds of city and countryside.

At U.S. Air Force bases strategically located near key cities our Airmen maintain their round the clock vigil, ready to take off on a moment’s notice in jet aircraft like Convair’s F-102A all-weather interceptor.  Every flight has only one purpose – your personal protection!

The next time jets thunder overhead, remember that the pilots who fly them are not willful disturbers of your peace; they are patriotic young Americans affirming your New Sound of Freedom!

Published for better understanding of the mission of the U.S.A.F. and Air Defense Command

Convair – A Division of General Dynamics Corporation

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Basically they are saying, when you start getting upset by all of the screaming jets and sonic booms, remember that it’s not simply a bunch of “fighter jocks” messing around up there, but rather they are practicing to be able to (hopefully) save your ass in the case of an attack.

I love where they chose to capitalize the letters (we call that “Initial Casing”, as opposed to ALL CAPS, in editorial jargon), and where they chose to emphasize using the italics.  In “round the clock vigil,” why don’t they italicize the word “vigil”?  In the last part, why did they include the word “your” in the italics?  Very strange, and yet somehow it fits into that 1950s design dynamic.

The F-102 Delta Dagger was an early supersonic jet fighter interceptor, one of the “Century Series” of aircraft, designed primarily to fly up to intercept and destroy incoming Soviet bombers.  To carry out that mission, they stood by on high alert, fueled and armed on runways around the U.S. (and the world) with crews at the ready.

It was the first operational supersonic interceptor in the Air Force inventory.  One of its design elements was the incorporation of what was then a very advanced fire-control system, which used radar and an automated computer system to direct the pilot where to fly the aircraft in order to automatically launch its missiles toward the incoming bombers.

Incredibly, by today’s standards, the fire-control radar reached out only 30 miles and began tracking targets individually at 15 miles!  Assuming both the F-102 and the incoming Soviet bombers were traveling at or near Mach 1 – the speed of sound, roughly 700 mph near sea level – that distance would be closed awfully fast.

Another aspect of its design was its internal missile bay.  Most fighters back then, as well as now, carried their weapons on external mounts under the fuselage and wings, called pylons.  However, in order for this early interceptor aircraft to achieve supersonic speeds, the Convair designers built a system into the fuselage where doors opened up beneath the plane and exposed the missiles only when they were ready to fire.

You can see a fine picture of that here:

In the cockpit, I love the early radar screen with the shade hood, above the flight instruments.  The pilot would be looking right “down the barrel” of the radar scope, to steer his airplane towards the incoming threat.