1950 Fairfield-Suisun Boeing B-29 Crash
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1950 Fairfield-Suisun Boeing B-29 Crash
Northeast of San Francisco, California, on 5 August 1950, a United States Air Force Boeing B-29 Superfortress bomber carrying a Mark 4 nuclear bomb crashed shortly after takeoff from Fairfield-Suisun Air Force Base with 20 men on board. Twelve men were killed in the crash, including the commander of the 9th Bombardment Wing, Brigadier General and another seven were killed on the ground when the aircraft exploded. The base was later renamed Accident In July 1950, soon after the outbreak of the Korean War, the Joint Chiefs of Staff resolved to send ten Silverplate (nuclear-capable) Boeing B-29 Superfortress bombers to Guam as a deterrent to a People's Republic of China (PRC) attack on Taiwan, (Republic of China), and for possible future use in Korea, each loaded with a Mark 4 nuclear bomb without the fissile pit. There were twenty passengers and crewmen on board B-29 44-87651 of the 99th Bombardment Squadron when it commenced takeoff from runway 21L at Fairfield-Suisun at 22:00 ...
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Fairfield-Suisun Air Force Base
Travis Air Force Base is a United States Air Force base under the operational control of the Air Mobility Command (AMC), located three miles (5 km) east of the central business district of the city of Fairfield, in Solano County, California, United States., effective 2007-12-20 Situated at the southwestern edge of the Sacramento Valley and known as the "Gateway to the Pacific," Travis Air Force Base handles more cargo and passenger traffic through its airport than any other military air terminal in the United States. The base has a long history of supporting humanitarian airlift operations at home and around the world. Today, Travis AFB includes approximately 7,260 active USAF military personnel, 4,250 Air Force Reserve personnel and 3,770 civilians. Travis AFB has a major impact on the community as a number of military families and retirees have chosen to make Fairfield their permanent home. It is the largest employer in the city and Solano County as well, and the mass ...
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Pit (nuclear Weapon)
The pit, named after the hard core found in fruits such as peaches and apricots, is the core of an implosion nuclear weapon – the fissile material and any neutron reflector or tamper bonded to it. Some weapons tested during the 1950s used pits made with U-235 alone, or in composite with plutonium, but all-plutonium pits are the smallest in diameter and have been the standard since the early 1960s. Pit designs Christy pits The pits of the first nuclear weapons were solid, with an ''urchin'' neutron initiator in their center. The Gadget and Fat Man used pits made of 6.2 kg of solid hot pressed plutonium-gallium alloy (at 400 °C and 200 MPa in steel dies – and ) half-spheres of diameter, with a internal cavity for the initiator. The Gadget's pit was electroplated with 0.13 mm of silver; the layer, however, developed blistering and the blisters had to be ground and plated with gold leaf before the test. The Fat Man pit, and those of subsequent models, were ...
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Vacaville
Vacaville is a city located in Solano County in Northern California. Sitting approximately from Sacramento and from San Francisco, it is within the Sacramento Valley. As of the 2020 census, Vacaville had a population of 102,386, making it the third largest city in Solano County. History Prior to European contact, the indigenous Patwin tribe lived in the area with the Ululato tribelet establishing a chiefdom around the Ululato village in what is now downtown Vacaville along the Ulatis Creek. The early settler pioneers of the land were Juan Manuel Cabeza Vaca and Juan Felipe Peña who were awarded a Mexican land grant in 1842. The same year in 1842, Vaca and Peña's families settled in the area of Lagoon Valley. Peña's Adobe home is the oldest standing building, built in 1842. Discussions for the sale of a portion of land to William McDaniel began in August 1850. A written agreement was signed on December 13, 1851, forming a township, nine square miles of land were deede ...
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Contactor
:''In semiconductor testing, contactors can also be referred to as the specialized socket that connects the device under test.'' :''In process industries, a contactor is a vessel where two streams interact, for example, air and liquid. See Gas-liquid contactor.'' A contactor is an electrically-controlled switch used for switching an electrical power circuit. A contactor is typically controlled by a circuit which has a much lower power level than the switched circuit, such as a 24-volt coil electromagnet controlling a 230-volt motor switch. Unlike general-purpose relays, contactors are designed to be directly connected to high-current load devices. Relays tend to be of lower capacity and are usually designed for both ''normally closed'' and ''normally open'' applications. Devices switching more than 15 amperes or in circuits rated more than a few kilowatts are usually called contactors. Apart from optional auxiliary low-current contacts, contactors are almost exclusively fitted ...
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Sergeant
Sergeant (abbreviated to Sgt. and capitalized when used as a named person's title) is a rank in many uniformed organizations, principally military and policing forces. The alternative spelling, ''serjeant'', is used in The Rifles and other units that draw their heritage from the British light infantry. Its origin is the Latin , 'one who serves', through the French term . The term ''sergeant'' refers to a non-commissioned officer placed above the rank of a corporal, and a police officer immediately below a lieutenant in the US, and below an inspector in the UK. In most armies, the rank of sergeant corresponds to command of a squad (or section). In Commonwealth armies, it is a more senior rank, corresponding roughly to a platoon second-in-command. In the United States Army, sergeant is a more junior rank corresponding to a squad- (12 person) or platoon- (36 person) leader. More senior non-commissioned ranks are often variations on sergeant, for example staff sergeant, gunn ...
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Cooking Off
Cooking off (or thermally induced firing) is unfired weapon ammunition exploding prematurely due to heat in the surrounding environment. The term is used both for detonation of ammunition not loaded into a weapon, and unintended firing of a loaded weapon due to heating. A fast cook-off is a cook-off caused by fire. A slow cook-off is caused by a sustained thermal event less intense than fire. A cooked-off round may cause a sympathetic detonation of adjacent rounds. Insensitive munitions are designed to be less vulnerable to accidental firing induced by external heat. Artillery Inherent design flaws in early 17th century Swedish leather cannons led to the gun tube overheating which prematurely ignited the gunpowder, injuring the loader. Muzzle-loading cannon on merchant and naval vessels of the Age of Sail would fire if the vessels caught fire while the guns were loaded. Examples include the merchantman and . After the cooking off of artillery shells in the G5 howitzer ...
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50 Caliber
This is a list of firearm cartridges which have bullets in the to caliber range. *''Length'' refers to the cartridge case length. *''OAL'' refers to the overall length of the cartridge. *''Bullet'' refers to the diameter of the bullet. Some measurements are in millimetres, while others are measured in inches. Self-loading pistol cartridges Revolver cartridges Rifle cartridges ''Note: The .50 Sharps, Winchester and US Government cartridges are actually of 13 mm caliber'' See also *.50 caliber handguns A .50 caliber handgun is a handgun firing a bullet measuring approximately in diameter. Historically, many black powder pistols fired bullets with diameters well above a half inch. However, following the development of smokeless powder, the focus ... References {{Firearm cartridge calibers Pistol and rifle cartridges ...
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Staff Sergeant
Staff sergeant is a rank of non-commissioned officer used in the armed forces of many countries. It is also a police rank in some police services. History of title In origin, certain senior sergeants were assigned to administrative, supervisory, or other specialist duties as part of the staff of a British Army regiment. As such they held seniority over sergeants who were members of a battalion or company, and were paid correspondingly increased wages. Their seniority was indicated by a crown worn above the three sergeant's stripes on their uniform rank markings. National variations Australia In the Australian Army and Cadets, the rank of staff sergeant is being phased out. It was usually held by the company quartermaster sergeant or the holders of other administrative roles. Staff sergeants are always addressed as "Staff Sergeant" or "Staff", never as "Sergeant" as it degrades their rank. "Chief" is another nickname though this is only used for the company chief clerk (in s ...
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Plexiglas
Poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) belongs to a group of materials called engineering plastics. It is a transparent thermoplastic. PMMA is also known as acrylic, acrylic glass, as well as by the trade names and brands Crylux, Plexiglas, Acrylite, Astariglas, Lucite, Perclax, and Perspex, among several others ( see below). This plastic is often used in sheet form as a lightweight or shatter-resistant alternative to glass. It can also be used as a casting resin, in inks and coatings, and for many other purposes. Although not a type of familiar silica-based glass, the substance, like many thermoplastics, is often technically classified as a type of glass, in that it is a non-crystalline vitreous substance—hence its occasional historic designation as ''acrylic glass''. Chemically, it is the synthetic polymer of methyl methacrylate. It was developed in 1928 in several different laboratories by many chemists, such as William Chalmers, Otto Röhm, and Walter Bauer, and first brought t ...
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Fuse (electrical)
In electronics and electrical engineering, a fuse is an electrical safety device that operates to provide overcurrent protection of an electrical circuit. Its essential component is a metal wire or strip that melts when too much current flows through it, thereby stopping or interrupting the current. It is a sacrificial device; once a fuse has operated it is an open circuit, and must be replaced or rewired, depending on its type. Fuses have been used as essential safety devices from the early days of electrical engineering. Today there are thousands of different fuse designs which have specific current and voltage ratings, breaking capacity, and response times, depending on the application. The time and current operating characteristics of fuses are chosen to provide adequate protection without needless interruption. Wiring regulations usually define a maximum fuse current rating for particular circuits. Short circuits, overloading, mismatched loads, or device failure are the prime ...
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Landing Gear
Landing gear is the undercarriage of an aircraft or spacecraft that is used for takeoff or landing. For aircraft it is generally needed for both. It was also formerly called ''alighting gear'' by some manufacturers, such as the Glenn L. Martin Company. For aircraft, Stinton makes the terminology distinction ''undercarriage (British) = landing gear (US)''. For aircraft, the landing gear supports the craft when it is not flying, allowing it to take off, land, and taxi without damage. Wheeled landing gear is the most common, with skis or floats needed to operate from snow/ice/water and skids for vertical operation on land. Faster aircraft have retractable undercarriages, which fold away during flight to reduce drag. Some unusual landing gear have been evaluated experimentally. These include: no landing gear (to save weight), made possible by operating from a catapult cradle and flexible landing deck: air cushion (to enable operation over a wide range of ground obstacles and wat ...
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