File:Project 279 ERCS Launch Site.png

Project 279 Blue Scout ERCS site somewhere in Nebraska

My father worked at these sites 1962-1967. I'm guessing this was taken in 1962 when the sites were under construction, not only from the automobile styles (late 50's/early 60's) in the photo but from the fact that there were three such cars in the picture. Once the sites were operational, crews were usually transported between Scribner AFB and the launch sites in USAF Dodge 4x4 crew-cab pickups. Also not yet present at this site is the guard shack on top of the blast mound.

The white house trailer on the right was for rest when the crew members were not on duty. Initially they were scheduled for 8 hours shifts, later 12-hours (2 on, 2 off, 2 on, 4 off), and eventually 24-hours (1 on, 3 off). My father spent a lot of those 24-hours shifts doing correspondence courses & assembling jigsaw puzzles in the house trailers.

Barely visible behind the two cars in the middle is the launch control trailer. Launch required verification (go code or fail-safe combination) from two sources: fail-safe combination, red phone to SAC underground, commercial phone, and dual VHF transmitters to communicate w/ Looking Glass (airborne command post). Launch would have taken about 90 seconds: 60 seconds to raise the missile to vertical, 20 seconds to activate its battery, record the current code, turn the two keys.

The trailer holding the missile is behind the blast mound, visible in the back left corner of the photo.

Crews consisted of the launch officers (one officer, one NCO), one of whom was always on duty monitoring communications in the launch control trailer, and two air police, one in the guard shack (not yet constructed here) and one on-call in the house trailer.

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