Can anyone remember Ace Freighters flying 2 tons of Nitro Glycerine a time
(Frozen in CarDice packed containers) from Lyneham to Woomera
in 1966. Did three trips on one of these.
Apparently for the Snowy Mountain Dam scheme in Aus.
Lovely SMOOTH landings
This sounds like a fairy tale to me. First, nitroglycerine is in liquid form, very sensitive. In explosives or pharmaceutical factories (it is also used as a medication for heart conditions, e.g. nitrolingual), it is usually made in a remote bunker, away from other factory installations, and then transported in polyethylene cans of 10-20 liters at one time to the mixing building (where it is being mixed with other components, like wood pulp and ammonia nitrate for ammonia nitrate dynamites) to desensitise it.
Frozen nitroglycerine is extremely dangerous, much more than the liquid stuff, when frozen, it forms little cristalls, which can go off at the slightest touch.
Not for nothing is handling frozen dynamite considered one of the most dangerous operations in blasting. Many commercial dynamite type explosives use a mix of nitroglycerine and nitoglycol, which has a lower freezing point.
BTW, I did my national service in a heavy rescue engineering unit of the German civil defense and was trained in demolitions and blasting, so I have a bit of experience (theoretical as well as practical) with explosives.