The 1st Experimental Guided Missiles Group is an inactive United States Air Force unit. It was last assigned to the Air Proving Ground Command and stationed at Eglin Air Force Base, Florida. It was inactivated on 22 July 1949.
The 1st EGMG was the initial United States Army Air Forces (later United States Air Force) dedicated missile unit.
History
Formed a result of the Air Materiel Command's Engineering Division at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base looking for a location to allow its contractors to launch missiles.
Missile technologies
Initial mission of unit was to determine Air Force missile requirements and review missile propulsion, guidance, and launching technologies. Also matrixed contractors to technologies: The Glenn L. Martin Company became the primary contractor in short-range, surface-to-surface missiles (e.g., the MX-771 Matador) Boeing got the surface-to-air business with the MX-606 Bomarc interceptor General Dynamics (i.e., the Consolidated-Vultee Aircraft Corporation) had the XB-65 Atlas, and North American had the MX-770 Navaho. Both of those were long-range, surface-to-surface missiles, though the Navaho was air breathing and the Atlas was ballistic. Northrop had the MX-775A Snark, another long-range, surface-to-surface, air-breathing missile Hughes Aircraft was contracted for air-to-air missiles Bell Aircraft was contracted for air-to-surface missiles
The contractor would be responsible for the requirements, and ultimately responsible for seeing that the project planning and development came together. In the late 1940s, the available funding that was provided to the Air Force was directed towards jet aircraft development. Missiles, at the time, were a piecemeal effort which reflected much competition among the three military branches and development often took a backseat to Strategic Air Command bomber and tanker force improvements.
Program plan development
In March 1947, when the group received its first series of test projects. Though most of the group's efforts were devoted to "on-the-job" training and providing assistance to contractors who launched those weapons, the 1st began implementing its mission, which included Developing tactics and techniques for guided missile operations Training personnel and testing equipment used in guided missile organizations Developing requirements and standards for the employment of guided missiles Conducting functional and tactical tests of new guided missiles to determine their operational suitability (i.e., readiness for adoption by the armed forces).
Operations
B-17 Drone development
During the war, experiments were made with approximately twenty-five war-weary B-17s (mostly F models) that were packed with high explosives to be used against heavily fortified Nazi weapons sites in France. These aircraft, designated "BQ-7" experiments (Project Aphrodite and Project Castor) were not successful due to the inability of the aircraft to be launched and controlled remotely, and the need for the aircraft to have a flight crew that would bail out and control of the plane be transferred to a director aircraft which would direct it to the target. Control difficulties in the wartime conditions led to the cancellation of the program.
Development in the United States of the wartime technology was accelerated by the 1946 Operation Crossroads atomic tests. The testing program called for drone aircraft to be flown through the atomic clouds after the explosion with monitoring and air sampling equipment. The requirement was for the drone aircraft to be taken off, flown and landed by radio control. The Air Materiel Command at Wright-Patterson Field, Ohio, developed a refined remote control system in about six weeks, advancing the World War II technology to meet the requirements. Initial testing was performed at Clovis Army Air Field, New Mexico. On 16 February 1946, the technology was successfully demonstrated using a war-weary B-17 that was flown in all phases of the flight remotely by radio control from a "mother" aircraft.
In May 1946, sixteen new B-17s were drawn from storage at South Plains Army Air Field, Lubbock, Texas. and were flown to the San Antonio Air Depot, Kelly Field, Texas. All defensive armament and turrets were stripped; the bomb bay doors being sealed along with the waist gunner openings. Then, the aircraft equipped with radio, radar, television and other equipment. Six of the aircraft were fitted with drone director equipment to control one drone aircraft and the capability to back up one other director aircraft.