“ is an extremely valuable program that provides hard evidence to decision-makers.” “There’s nothing can do what that aircraft does,” says Lieutenant Colonel Steven Nachtwey, 45th Reconnaissance Squadron commander. Airborne sampling is actually the retrieval of microscopic pieces of the bomb itself, which are subjected to radiochemistry to analyze the materials used. Seismic or space-based detection can determine only that a test has taken place and cannot provide detailed information about the weapon’s technology. Xenon radionuclides exist in minute parts-per-trillion concentrations after a blast, and can be detected only by sampling. We do air mass projections and put the plane where there is radioactive xenon, which has a short decay life.” “We have sensors around the world to detect the blast. “If you have a ground sampler at a forward location, you’ll collect effluent if the wind is kind to you,” O’Brien says. The two main benefits of airborne sampling-mobility and pinpoint retrieval of debris-kept the Sniffer in business. “If India and Pakistan hadn’t occurred, that aircraft would be retired and sitting in the desert outside Tucson, Arizona.” “At the 11th hour and 59th minute something happened,” O’Brien says. In rapid succession, India and Pakistan set off nuclear explosions in underground test chambers. The equation suddenly changed over two weeks in May 1998. In addition to waiting for enhanced grab-and-go airborne sampling equipment, policymakers put their money on pending advances in remote sensing technology, hoping that the Phoenix aircraft, sometimes called “Sniffers,” would enjoy a quiet retirement-an approach that appeared to be the best option given a tight budget. “The decision was made not to fund the maintenance…. “By 1997, the debate was: Should we continue to fund this aircraft, which needed major maintenance, or not fund it and take the risk that it wouldn’t be needed?” says David O’Brien, AFTAC chief scientist. There hasn’t been an above-ground test since 1980, when China detonated two bombs in the atmosphere. Atomic Energy Detection System, a global network of nuclear blast detectors that includes, in addition to the aircraft, seismometers, undersea listening devices, and satellite-mounted optical sensors calibrated to detect the flash of an above-ground atomic explosion. Escalating maintenance and repair costs for the aging aircraft (today, two survivors of a sampling fleet that in its heyday numbered more than six dozen) had convinced the Phoenix program’s managers at the Air Force Technical Applications Center just south of Cocoa Beach, Florida, to ground the 135s while the center developed a modular system of sensors that could be plugged in and flown on any cargo-type aircraft. In early May 1998, the WC-135s were only days away from administrative death. It’s a mission that takes Riley all over the world to retrieve evidence from the area of a nuclear explosion. He navigates one of the last remaining WC-135s equipped for Constant Phoenix, the nation’s only airborne program to detect nuclear fallout. Long missions are the standard for Riley and his many crewmates. You got a stove, you use it, Riley says-even if you’re 30,000 feet up and especially when you’ve been flying 15 hours straight. More frequently, there are the aromas of fresh-baked pizza and the unmistakable scents of TV dinners, baking slow and steady, the old-fashioned way. Navigator Jimmie Riley fondly remembers a mission when he could smell popcorn all the way to the cockpit.
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