Largest nuclear weapon ever deployed on display in Arizona

[Music] about a half hour south of Tucson there was a hole in the ground people flock here to salary to see it it isn't often that you get to stand right next to the largest nuclear weapon that the United States ever deployed it isn't really often you get to stand next to any nuclear weapon you know and so there is a kind of wow factor in that so up in the nose cone there is a single very large hydrogen bomb a thermonuclear weapon it is it has it has a yield of nine megatons which means that it has the equivalent explosive power of nine million tons of TNT this preserved titan ii missile site officially known as complex 571 - seven is all that remains of the 54 titan ii missile sites that were on alert across the united states from 1963 to 1987 the gren safe is called the Iwo safe Evo stands for emergency war orders lava cruise to call that to go to war safe because there's no reason to open it unless you go into war - combination locks on it one for the commander one for the deputy they know their own combination but they don't know each other's so they both have to agree to get inside the safe the missile could launch from its underground silo in just 58 seconds the Titan 2 was capable of delivering a 9 Megaton nuclear warhead to targets more than 6,000 miles away in about 30 minutes we have three targets three pre-programmed targets that we could launch against they are target's one two and three their locations were classified and unknown to the crew and remain classified to this day targets are selected from the commander's console right here just a matter of pressing one button or the other each target of the three can be set as an air burst or a ground burst depending on the kind of targets we're going to go after and this big thing is called the macaque the missile guidance alignment checkout group this is how we tell the missile where it's going all the targeting information was fed from the macaque to the guidance computer on punched tape like this so before before floppy disks before cassette tapes before punch cards there was this stuff state-of-the-art back in 1960 nowhere else in the world can visitors get this close to an intercontinental ballistic missile that's still pretty much where it was how it was during the Cold War this is the secret unlock code for the missile and the message sounds like this around here open this up pull out a card inside if the code word on this card the spending is safe all these many years matches the code word they just sent us in the radio then this is not a drill this is a legitimate order to go the complex was built of steel reinforced concrete with walls as much as 8 foot thick in some places several 3 ton blast doors sealed the various areas from the surface and each other the top level of the silo lets you see the silo missile doors to make good on an agreement between the US and the former Soviet Union the silo doors are permanently blocked from opening more than halfway the dummy re-entry vehicle mounted on the missile has an obvious hole cut in it to prove that there is no longer a bomb inside but one of the most fearful and fascinating features on sight isn't something you'll see it's a sound this is a federal Thunderbolt model 1003 siren it's a dual tone siren federal installed literally thousands of these across the United States during the 50s they were originally thought of as air-raid sirens until just a couple of years ago this electrical box and the horns on top this tower were pretty much forgotten Chuck Penson and a friend got curious and then they got to work took some cleaning oiling wrenching and tinkering to get it back to life there's a control box right here and inside the control box are all the controls we need to turn on the blower the chopper which is the rotating shutter and we can actually make the siren go around like this also [Music] [Applause] there's no set schedule for running the Thunderbolt usually it's fired up no more than once a month when it does it gets lots of attention sometimes too much the day of our visit it got people calling the Pima County Sheriff's Office deputies showed up to check it out and the reason it was put in is because of a very serious accident that happened at a site like this in Little Rock Arkansas in which ultimately the missile exploded in the silo and so they thought hmmm maybe it would be a good idea to have a way of warning the kind of local population that something's going on at one of these sites that they might want to get out of town for a little while [Music] we don't run the siren on a regular basis so when we do run it we try to time it so that we run it for a group that's just come up from underground or maybe for a group that's just going to go underground and so they get to really experience it you know firsthand most visitors wonder what was it like to be part of the crew that might have launched the missile to have as they say your finger on the button takes two keys to fire the missile put a key in here well there is no button there was a key two of them actually keys are far enough apart that not even a long-arm guy like me can reach them both keys must be turned within two seconds of each other and their supreme loaded so you got to hold them in a turn position for five seconds before the launch will start that guarantees that two people will be required to do this on each underground tour one visitor gets to follow through on turning the key that could have started World War three and now it's payback time commander so what you're going to do you can use your left hand you're going to be give me a countdown three two one turnkeys try it once excellent when you get to turn keys and we always invite one of our guests to sit in the commander's seat and give us a countdown and turn the keys and I have had people refuse to turn the keys even knowing that it's just a simulation I've had people actually cry at that prospect so it does have I think at some level a very very significant emotional punch I think what people are what people always come away with here is a sense of kind of awe about how enormous this weapon actually was Arizona Highways television is brought to you by errors in a public service and the Arizona office of tourism

Channel: AZFamily | Arizona News

Views: 2,987,119

Keywords: Arizona Highways Show, arizona, missile silo, pima county, 3tv, azfamily, history, arizona tourist

Id: 1E3sFfnAUQs

Length: 7min 59sec (479 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 26 2019