Airlift of the Atlas Missile 1960 US Air Force Military Air Transport Service (MATS) Film FTA-500

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How to unload a SM-65 Atlas ICBM missile from a Douglas C-133 transport aircraft after it has been flown to a destination.

Originally a public domain film from the US Air Force, slightly cropped to remove uneven edges, with the aspect ratio corrected, and one-pass brightness-contrast-color correction & mild video noise reduction applied.

The soundtrack was also processed with volume normalization, noise reduction, clipping reduction, and/or equalization (the resulting sound, though not perfect, is far less noisy than the original).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SM-65_Atlas

Wikipedia license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

The SM-65 Atlas was the first operational intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) developed by the United States and the first member of the Atlas rocket family. It was built for the U.S. Air Force by the Convair Division of General Dynamics at an assembly plant located in Kearny Mesa (north of San Diego). Atlas became operational as an ICBM in October 1959 and was quickly obsoleted by new development, being retired as a missile by 1965. However, Atlas-derived launch vehicles have a long history as space launchers.

Even before its ICBM use ended in 1965, Atlas had placed four Project Mercury astronauts in orbit and was becoming the foundation for a family of successful space launch vehicles, most notably Atlas Agena and Atlas Centaur. Mergers led to the acquisition of the Atlas Centaur line by the United Launch Alliance. Today ULA supports the larger Atlas V, which combines the unique and highly efficient Centaur upper stage with a new booster. Until 2001, many of the retired Atlas ICBMs were refurbished and combined with upper stages to launch satellites...

Atlas was the first US ICBM and one of the first large liquid-fueled rockets. As such, its early development was quite chaotic, with plans changing rapidly as flight tests revealed issues.

Atlas got its start in 1946 with the award of an Army Air Forces research contract to Consolidated Vultee Aircraft (later Convair) for the study of a 1,500-to-5,000-mile (2,400 to 8,000 km) range missile that might at some future date carry a nuclear warhead. This MX-774 project was named for the Atlas of Greek mythology and the contractor's parent Atlas Corporation. At the time, the smallest atomic warheads were all larger than the maximum theoretical payloads of the planned long range missiles, so the contract was canceled in 1947, but the Army Air Forces allowed Convair to launch the three almost-completed research vehicles using the remaining contract funds. The three flights were only partially successful, but did show that balloon tanks and gimbaled rocket engines were valid concepts.

A second development contract was awarded to Convair on 16 January 1951 for what was then called MX-1593, with a relatively low priority. The initial design completed by Convair in 1953 was larger than the missile that eventually entered service. Estimated warhead weight was lowered from 8,000 lb (3,630 kg) to 3,000 lb (1,360 kg) based on highly favorable U.S. nuclear warhead tests in early 1954. This, in addition to the Soviet Union's 1953 Joe 4 dry fuel thermonuclear weapon test and the CIA learning that the Soviet ICBM program was making progress, led to the project being dramatically accelerated. Atlas became a crash program of the highest national importance on 14 May 1954.

A major development and test contract was awarded to Convair on 14 January 1955 for a 10-foot (3 m) diameter missile to weigh about 250,000 lb (113,400 kg). Atlas development was tightly controlled by the Air Force's Western Development Division, WDD, later part of the Air Force Ballistic Missile Division. Contracts for warhead, guidance and propulsion were handled separately by WDD. The first successful flight of a highly instrumented Atlas missile to full range occurred 28 November 1958. Atlas ICBMs were deployed operationally from 31 October 1959 to 12 April 1965.

The missile was originally designated as the XB-65 experimental bomber; in 1955 it was redesignated SM-65 ("Strategic Missile 65") and, from 1962, it became CGM-16. This letter "C" stood for "coffin" or "Container", the rocket being stored in a semi-hardened container; it was prepared for launch by being raised and fueled in the open. The Atlas-F (HGM-16) was stored vertically underground, but launched after being lifted to the surface.[citation needed]

By 1965, with the second-generation Titan II having reached operational status, the Atlas was obsolete as a missile system and had been phased out of military use. Many of the retired Atlas D, E, and F missiles were used for space launches into the 1990s.

The penetrating lubricant WD-40 found its first use as a corrosion-inhibiting coating for the outer skin of the Atlas missile...