T-21
 

School teachers have been motivated by political considerations regarding what they have and have not taught for many years in the UK. Two of my wives have been teachers and they were VERY anti some NUT stances.

A Spanish Thor IRBM fan.
 

¡Buen día desde España a todos!:
Hello everybody, I just arrived to this forum to make my modest contribution and learn all I can about the Thor missiles, in most cases directly from people who served on the RAF in those days.

T21 and John Farley
 

I recall a spontaneous discussion in the sixth form at my (co-educational) school in the early 1960s about nuclear weapons and deterrence, and the teacher being extremely uncomfortable about the subject having been raised.

He didn't have to squirm for long, however, because one of the girls said: "If there is one of these 4-minute warnings and it turns out to be a false alarm, some of us girls are going to look pretty stupid, aren't we?"

In later years when more involved in the actual business, I thought that was a profoundly astute piece of analysis from a 17 year-old. She was beautiful, too, and for 50 years I have wondered who she had in mind, knowing for certain that it wasn't me.:8

Many years ago (in the early 60s) when I was a little Air Cadet we had our Summer Camp at RAF Topclife (please excuse the spelling I say it's premature senility ???) and one day we visited a nearby missile site. Does anyone know which it may have been, it was about 1hrs drive away. :confused::confused:

Full Sutton, Breighton, Driffield, Carnaby, Catfoss. My money is on Full Sutton.
3D

My sister-in-law's dad was on Thors as his last detachment in the RAF. He'd started as a fitter on Hawker Demons......

Young journo Winston Churchill was shot at in 1895 in Cuba. US Army there in 1898 looked over a hill from a tied balloon. Churchill's last Cabinet in 1955 funded Blue Streak, which drew on much Thor data, inc. latterly its warhead. Massive Aero techno-strides in one (long) adult lifetime.

I was at RAF Driffield 1961-63 in the commcen. It was rather worrying to discover that the Thor missile guidance system was built by the AC Spark Plug Company.

Thor
 

The photographs showing the loading or unloading of Thors into the aircraft are superb. I was at North Luffenham and the idea of anyone carrying a camera was unheard of. I hope that the site at Royal Air Force North Luffenham, as it was once called, now a Grade 2 listed can show a bit more of the 'Cold War' period that the country went through.

Thor
 

They were not silos. They were horizontal until being made ready for launch

All flap and no fly
 

And a good job too. I tell people that I was on squadrons in the Royal Air Force that never flew a mission. Thank God.

Missile firing
 

When I served on Bloodhound in the 70s we would be detailed to send a missile to Aberportth for a test firing. Did similar happen for the Thor?


Aaron.

I believe the RAF carried out 12 test firings of which 2 failed.

IIRC they were fired from Vandenburg AFB.

Each Thor team was supposed to go to Vandenberg AFB in California with a missile demounted from a launch emplacement on their site. This was called a CTL (Continuation/Combat Training Launch, depending on where you read it).

In the end not all crews got the opportunity, but plenty did. One of the North Luffenham launches had the code name Acton Town.

AFAICS There is a difference between Test Firings and Training Firings.

Yup.

The CTLs were to give the RAF real experience of launching the round, and also give Douglas the knowledge of how a missile performs that has been shipped both ways across the Atlantic and sat on a pad in the British weather...would it actually make it to Moscow?

Fantastic Thread with great pictures - thanks everyone.

I've grabbed a copy of John's book on my Kindle and look forward to reading it

It's the definitive work on Thor, I wasn't aware it was available on e-book...I might indulge as it saves getting out of the chair when I need to check something...

Research isn't what it used to be! :)

It's interesting to note that several old Thor pads are still very much in evidence at Vandenburg AFB.

I was over there in May 2013 and had a fantastic guided tour round the old Thor facilities. SLC-10 is the preserved Thor site complete with a Program 437 missile, LE-8 is in a good condition and is where a lot of the CTLs were launched from. LE-7 is slowly rotting away but has a lot of Thor relics including what's left of an ex-Harrington missile that was used to prove the effectiveness of laser weapons (they're effective!)

SLC-1E is in a terrible state, but has a certain appeal.

I was really privileged to have this tour as there were no public tours due to budget cuts last year; to have such unrivalled access was incredible.