I have a doctor’s appointment today. I would say I’m being a little lazy, since these videos are long, but I think there’s some stuff in them that might interest military history buffs. All of these come from the same source (BalticaBeer) and seem to be official productions of the Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake. I feel like there’s kind of unifying theme here: what a small motivated group of individuals can do if given liberty to work outside of the box.
In rough order of length: “To the Sea, a Sidewinder…50 Years of Snakes on the Wing”, a documentary history of the AIM-9 Sidewinder.
Next up: “The Origins of ARM: Defence Suppression and the Shrike Antiradar Missile”.
Finally: “The Pursuit of Precision: Walleye The TV-Guided Glide Bomb”
I know this last one is the length of a feature film. I’ve actually watched all of it, and personally found it weirdly fascinating. Also, there is a lot of footage of things blowing up or being blown up, so it isn’t just talking heads. Walleye itself is kind of a fascinating story. Today, it’s not uncommon to talk about putting a bomb through one window of a building: but what I don’t think most people realize is that we were actually doing that 55 years ago.
(Ålso, if you’re a television technology geek, there’s a lot of talk about TV tech and how Walleye helped advance the technology.)