Keep Away from Point Mugu !
October 1948 Popular Science

October 1948 Popular Science [Table of Contents] Wax nostalgic about and learn from the history of early electronics. See articles from Popular Science, published 1872-2021. All copyrights hereby acknowledged.

Just about anyone familiar with the Electronic Warfare and Radar Systems Engineering Handbook, a must-have resource back in the 1980s* and up through even today, knows it was published by the Naval Air Warfare Center's Weapons Division Avionics Department, Electronic Warfare Division at Point Mugu, California. I don't know when the first edition was put out, but the most recent is 2013. My introduction to it was after arriving at General Electric's Aerospace Electronic Systems Division, in Utica, New York, right after graduating from the University of Vermont in 1989. It was, and still is, a valuable resource for RF and microwave systems design. This 1948 issue of Popular Science magazine contained an article entitled, "Keep Away from Point Mugu!," to inform the public of the dangerous airborne weapons systems being developed and tested there. Remotely controlled and self-piloted missiles and drones, radar systems, secure communications systems, and other highly advanced, top secret projects were and still are to this day in process.  * 1997 is the earliest I can find, but it sure seems like it has been around longer.

Keep Away from Point Mugu !

By Andrew R. Boone

The young Naval officer jabs his red pencil at an air map of the California coast. That red dot is now a pin-point target. Its exact position, 100 miles or farther out in the Pacific Ocean, is calculated.

Soon, one of the Navy's secret guided missiles roars from a launcher and arcs high into the sky. If its electronic brain responds swiftly and surely to radioed commands, the missile will plunk into the sea on or very near its mark, far over the horizon.

"At least," the launching control officer tells you, grinning, "we'll scare a helluva lot of sea gulls."

Hitting tiny targets 150 miles away, far beyond the horizon, is serious business with the Navy's Air Missile Test Center experts at Point Mugu, Calif. Since the station began operation Oct. 1, 1946, hundreds of missiles have smoked seaward. Upwards of $15,000 drop into the drink as each ends its flight. In time, improvements from these launchings will bring guided missiles that can be fired from surface ships with the accuracy of a 16-inch rifle-but with far greater range and destructive power.

The Navy isn't shooting fireworks for fun. These experimental missiles are not rockets, but miniature planes with wings. They carry instruments that receive their guidance from within, or from a remote station - on land, ship, or plane. They fly toward one of several islands forming a natural V out in the Pacific. On all the islands are observation stations, in constant touch with the mainland by radio, radar, and other means of communication.

By tracking a missile from several points, it's fairly easy to determine its position in space throughout a flight. At the same time, the missile telemeters back to headquarters a running account, reporting with a series of dots and wavy lines exactly how it functions, from the temperature inside its combustion chamber to response of the rudder to radioed commands.

Point Mugu has been operated for some time as a temporary base. Now it's going to work in earnest. Recently, Congress authorized the Navy to spend $30,000,000 on construction to keep it ahead of all comers in this field. Within three years it will grow into a huge control center outfitted with the latest in radar and other tracking devices. Scores of workers will be supervising flights from a battery of launchers. In time, as many as 96 launchers may be installed. Elsewhere on the 7,000-acre station, shops and test facilities will continue to perfect missiles and components made by manufacturers to Government specifications. Only the best will join the fleet.

Tests for Fitness

Right now, the engineers and workshoppers are laying plans with ingenious gadgets to improve the aiming of missiles still under wraps. You will read about some of these in months to come, but not until the Navy knows their delicate innards can withstand the severe shock of sudden take-offs from the launchers; that they will respond instantly and accurately to remote control; that they will hit their targets with more than a fair degree of accuracy and reliability.

In the Point Mugu shops and along the shore, experts soon will be working with a trio of machines that will submit new weapons to grueling punishment. If the electronic brains and other controls housed in guided missiles can't take it, and be ready for more, they will be either toughened or discarded.

They're dropped in one test. Mounted on a piston, complete medium missiles, such as the buzz bomb, will be dropped 10 feet and jerked to a stop in 3/100 of a second.

But missiles must withstand even greater stress before they're pronounced fit to be launched. A mighty little centrifuge will submit assemblies to a pull 100 times greater than the force of gravity. And then there'll be an even tougher test, known as linear acceleration. Take a compact little package weighing 200 pounds and place it on a simulated launcher. Say it contains the controls that will actuate a missile's rudder and elevators. Place it within a torpedo-shaped form, and lay it on its side in a sled at one end of a steel track about a mile long. Now hit it with the blast of high-powered rocket motors. Almost as quick as a wink, this little runaway, accelerating at hundreds of G, will pass the sonic barrier.

Although rushing down the track nearly three times faster than sound, the assembly must be halted, swiftly and safely, so that the effects of acceleration may be evaluated. For this purpose, brakes of some' type, pos-sibly water scoops, must be developed.

Thus the missile withstands battering and shocking starts and stops. How efficiently and over what range will it transmit and receive signals? To find out, missiles weighing a full ton will be mounted on a 50-foot, non-conductive tower, made of wood or plastic. As the missile is turned a full 360 degrees and rolled 90 degrees from level, the radiation pattern of its antennas will be charted by electronics experts in a test room a mile distant. When a missile of the same configuration takes off on a 150-mile flight, its transmitting and receiving ranges in all directions will be known.

Five classes of missiles are being developed:

Ground-to-air, like the interceptor airplane, is fast and of short range. It is intended to knock down incoming aircraft or missiles.

Air-to-ground takes over the bomber's functions for destruction of enemy ships, military installations, and other primary targets.

Air-to-air serves the same function as the fighter plane.

Ship-to-ship suggests the torpedo plane. This missile would go in low and fast.

Ship-to-share, flying in a long, high trajectory, becomes a high-level bomber.

The Navy expects to continue employing ships as fighting bases for a long time to come. Point Mugu missileers envision the necessity of launching their weapons from rolling decks, in fair weather and foul. When a new missile arrives at the base under wraps, eager minds begin to throw questions: Can it be launched? Once off a catapult, will it fly? If it flies, will it respond to remote control? Finally, how must the flame-belching weapon be discharged from a surface vessel to insure an accurate trajectory - and a hit?

Out on the wind-swept island of San Nicholas in the Pacific, some 63 miles from the Naval Air Missile Test Center, the Navy maintains a staff of approximately 50 people. From this island they obtain information to aid telemetering the progress of flight and performance of the missile. In the not too distant future, it will be used as a site to launch missiles that are considered too dangerous to launch from shore installations at Point Mugu.

Thus guided missiles are being groomed for a big future with the fleet.

Just how big, you're told, depends upon the scientists, the weather, and the dogged, day-by-day, try-'em-and-fly-'em project assigned to the men of Point Mugu.

An F-80 Shooting Star jet fighter takes off in pursuit of each missile that is launched. The pilot's job is to shoot down those that misbehave by turning back toward shore, not responding to commands, or flying beyond the designated target area. Already more than one of Point Mugu's winged missiles have gone into the drink under fire from the guardian fighter.

Posted January 30, 2024