Guided missiles are passing from the developmental stage into limited production.
Approximately $26 million will be spent by the U. S. Air Force for guided missile procurement this year. USAF and Navy have approximately $28 million earmarked for guided missile procurement in the fiscal 1950 budget now being considered by Congress. This is in addition to research and development funds for guided missile experimentation.
Training Missiles-Gen. Hoyt Vandenberg, USAF chief of staff, announced that the $26 million appropriation recently approved by President Truman would be spent largely for training missiles and launching equipment needed to train USAF missile launching crews and technicians. Earlier Vandenberg revealed that USAF was expanding its first guided missiles group into a guided missiles wing (wings normally consist of three groups).
Legislation authorizing the USAF to construct a $200 million long range proving ground for guided missiles was introduced in Congress last week by Sen. Millard Tydings (D., Md.), chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee.
The proving ground would be oper-ated jointly by members of the USAF, Navy and Army.
New Missiles-Air Force also revealed two experimental missiles which it has tested successfully during the past six months. They are:
Convair 774-This is a 32 ft. missile roughly similar to the German V-2 (45 ft.) It was built at Convair's San Diego plant and will be put into use as a training missile for USAF missile launching crews.
The Convair 774 was first fired successfully last summer at White Sands Proving Ground, N. M. The 774 was designed primarily as a test vehicle for experimentation with new launching techniques, fuels, and rocket propulsion motors. The missile will also be used in upper atmosphere research since it has a potential altitude of 100 miles.
North American NATIV-This test missile is 13 ft. long and was first fired last summer at Alamogordo, N. M. It will be used to test aerodynamic research in the development of control systems and also as a training vehicle for launching crews. It is fired from a tall metal tower and is guided by rails within the tower during the first few seconds after firing. The missile has attained an altitude of 10 miles during test firings.
NATIV was built by North American at its Inglewood plant.
USAF now has nine basic guided missile development contracts in the aircraft industry and has developed military requirements for 13 basic types of guided missiles.
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Aviation Week | February 7, 1949
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