Re: First visit to KFC; what to see???

Pat Flannery wrote:
> Ed Kyle wrote:
>
> > The bus will pass right past the big Navaho
> >launch pad, for example, but the guide may forget to
> >mention it, etc.
> >
>
> That's still there? I thought they converted it into an Atlas pad.
>
> Pat

Yep, it is still there. I saw it a few weeks ago. You
might be thinking of the new Atlas V pad having been
built on top of the old Titan III/IV pad?

Navaho XSM-64 flights lifted off from Launch Complex 9,
which was a fairly massive concrete hard stand equipped
with a big erector contraption. A big mobile hanger
would roll over the top of the pad and erector when the
erector was laid back horizontally with the booster and
missile mounted on top. Complex 9 was south of the skid
strip, just south of the fenceline of existing Launch
Complex 31/32. A second, flat pad, Launch Complex 10,
was also part of the Navaho site. Pad 10, which was
never used for a launch, was located a bit north and
east of Pad 9.

During the early to mid 1950s, until it became clear that
ballistic missiles could be made to work, Navaho was the
nation's top priority missile effort - an effort that
consumed more than $2 billion of today's dollars but
produced no operational missile system. The money wasn't
all wasted. Atlas development was eased by the already-
available Navaho booster rocket engines, for example.
Today's Delta II RS-27A will apparantly be the final
descendent of the Navaho engine.

Atlas, BTW, was launched from a completely different
set of pads north of the skid strip, an area known
as ICBM Row. The early Atlas launches occurred while
the Navaho Complex was still active. It quickly became
clear that Atlas was working and Navaho wasn't.

Soon after Navaho was shut down, in 1958, Launch Complex
10 was bulldozed to make way for Minuteman Launch
Complex 31/32. The Minuteman complex was oriented on a
slightly different launch azimuth, so a small portion of
the Navaho launch site remained outside the fence,
including the massive Launch Complex 9 concrete hard stand
that still stands next to an access road today.

I did a writeup on this a few years ago, at:

"http://www.geocities.com/launchreport/navaho1.html";

Here is a 1999 aerial photo of the old Navaho pad, in
the center of the oval concrete area:

"http://www.terraserver.microsoft.com/image.aspx?T=1&S=10&Z=17&X=2715&Y=15736&W=1&qs=%7ccape+canaveral%7cfl%7c";

The erector used to fold back to the east (right). The
hanger used to roll back to the east as well.

- Ed Kyle

.

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