Warbird Information Exchange

Derek,

Thanks for posting photos of the various sites.

I have visited the two Nike Hercules sites attached to Walker AFB (WA-10 and WA-50), unlike most of the other sites they never became operational. It seems that they were built, activated and then deactivated within days. I am not sure if they ever had missies emplaced. Some of the buildings were rundown but still in place until last summer. Both sites still have the berms, crew bunkers, but neither site had underground magazines.

My website on the two sites:: http://www.angelfire.com/dc/jinxx1/WA10/WA10.html

_________________
Had God intended for man to fly behind inline engines, Pratt & Whitney would have made them.

CB

http://www.angelfire.com/dc/jinxx1/Desrt_Wings.html

Hi,

Well I just got back from another trip to the Bay Area. I re-visited the SF-88 launch site and this time I also made the difficult (for this out of shape city boy anyway!) 1.7 mile/800+ feet hike up to the unrestored SF-88 IFC site at the top of Wolf Ridge.

The site looks different than the pictures bugazon posted last year. The radar towers have been farther taken apart which was sad to see. One good thing is that it looks like the park service there has repainted the site to cover up the crap graffitti:










This is a shot of the MTR pad, you can just see the top of the Golden Gate Bridge, that's how high up you are here:




Here is a shot of the launch site from the top of Wolf Ridge at the IFC Site:




I also went back the launch site and took a few more photos than last year's visit. They have a MTR and LOPAR radar set there along with the control vans. These of course would have been at the IFC site:






Here's a shot of a missile in the assembly building on display:



In the magazine, I took a shot of a Nike with the probe cover on:



And when we were leaving, a shot of the missile going back into the magazine:




They didn't raise the missile this time while I was there so I was glad that I saw that last year.

-Derek

Neat stuff Derek! Thanks for posting.

_________________
Had God intended for man to fly behind inline engines, Pratt & Whitney would have made them.

CB

http://www.angelfire.com/dc/jinxx1/Desrt_Wings.html

Always astouding to see what kept me from becoming a crispy critter when I was just a sprout wearing my stainless steel I.D. bracelet so my fried bod could be identified 'just in case'
THANX

_________________
Don't make me go get my flying monkeys-

Thanks for the pics! 30 years ago the IFC area was a group campsite. It was lots of fun to camp up there - had a friend pitch a tent on top of on the radar towers until the the wind blew it off. Part of the access road up to the site was wiped out by a landslide and that was the end of the camping.

Made a day hike up there a few years ago. I'm guessing the sheet metal on the radar stands was removed because it was heavily corroded and was falling apart. Amazing what the salt air can do to metal.

Clifford - Great photos of the former Walker Defense Area sites, the one and only time I was able to visit and document them was in May '89 while enroute from Lockheed in SoCal to my new job at GD-Fort Worth. Due to DoD budget cuts, ARADCOM wound up building several new defenses for the SAC bases which never went operational. All were of the standard design for the SAC installation sites, above-ground magazines in berms:

Built, manned, operational
Barksdale AFB - 5/562nd Artillery
Bergstrom AFB - 4/7th
Dyess AFB - 5/517th
Lincoln AFB - 6/43rd
Offutt AFB - 6/43rd
Robins AFB - 4/61st
Turner AFB - 2/43rd

Built, manned, never equipped
Mountain Home AFB - 6/51st (no record of actually getting personnel assigned; remnants of the initial construction are at the two sites)
Schilling AFB - 5/44th
Walker AFB - 6/2nd

Surveyed, not built
Columbus AFB
Little Rock AFB
Malmstrom AFB (proposed, may not have ever actually been surveyed)
Sheppard AFB

Break/break, Derek, congrats on getting up to SF-87C. Both of my last visits to SF-88L I didn't have the time to make that hike, from the photos it was obviously well worth the effort!

Thanks for the comments guys. It was great to see. My soreness is almost gone too

I wanted to post some photos of the Battery Townsley gun emplacements along the hike:




(that's my brother also in the photo)






And to give some idea of the hike, this is the last push to get into the site:




I would do it again, but I'd bring more water next time

-Derek