Typical BW Aerial Spray Test

Typical BW Aerial Spray Test

In August and September of 1958, Dugway ran six night trials on the Aerial Spray Grid. The tests used a low flying F-100A with a modified a 275-gallon fuel tank to act as the spray dispenser. A critical point of the test was the performance of a nozzle that would spray out liquid particles 5 microns or less in size, so that minute drops of the liquid agent would float in the air over a wide area. The pilot flew the craft over a triangularly shaped course, approximately 15 miles long and 12 miles wide. In the area were 72 sampling devices and the 300 foot high tower with sampling devices very five feet at the end of the grid. Trials run to analyze the aerosol cloud behavior during the tests proved the capability of the aerial spray device. Results also indicated that an area 10 miles or better could be covered downwind. Five runs were made with simulants. One hot pass was made ( with guinea pigs placed at the sampling stations ) spraying the agent that causes Q fever. Indications were that if human beings had been in the area, 99 percent of them would have been infected. Other important results from the tests were these: that a spray device would disseminate BW aerosol more effectively than bombs, shells, or special BW munitions; and that the tank held a much larger quantity of liquid agent, in regard to the weight of the spray system, than other BW dissemination devices.

The tests proved that airborne BW attacks could be carried out at low levels, and that a properly designed spray system could contaminate 50,000 square miles with BW aerosol in a single sortie. The significance of this lies in the remarkable efficiency of this means of attack. For example, on a night when the wind was blowing ten miles per hour, three large aircraft, each carrying 4,000 gallons of liquid BW agent, and flying at a speed of 500 knots, could spray an area of 150,000 square miles, causing more than half the people in the area to become ill.