wrbones
03-11-03, 07:49 PM
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/5368809.htm
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Posted on Tue, Mar. 11, 2003
'Massive' Air Force bomb tested at Eglin; nearby buildings shook
By The Associated Press
More photos AP/Department of Defense
In this image from video, the cloud rises after detonation of U.S. Air Force's Massive Ordnance Air Blast, or MOAB, Tuesday in Florida, after a test of the biggest bomb in the U.S. arsenal.
NAVARRE - Buildings shook, windows rattled and a white mushroom cloud could be seen for miles on Eglin Air Force Base where the largest conventional bomb in the U.S. military's arsenal was tested for the first time Tuesday.
The 21,000-pound MOAB, officially the Massive Ordnance Air Blast but unofficially called the ''Mother of All Bombs,'' created a dust cloud that 1st Lt. Karen Roganov, a public affairs officer, saw from atop the base headquarters building 30 miles away from the test range.
''It looked like a white mushroom cloud,'' Roganov said. ``It was kind of billowy like cotton or clouds. It didn't look like an A-bomb where it expands and contracts quickly. It was a lingering mushroom cloud.''
She said she saw the blast several seconds before hearing a ``small boom.''
The blast could be heard but not seen in Navarre on the southwestern edge of Eglin, which is two-thirds the size of Rhode Island and sprawls across 724 square miles of the Florida Panhandle.
''It was just a boom. It shook the building,'' said Lynn Jones, a Santa Rosa County sheriff's public service technician at the Navarre substation. ``I wasn't expecting it. It kind of scared me at first.''
The bomb exploded shortly after 1 p.m. CST after being dropped from the rear of a C-130 transport plane and guided to its target by satellite signals, Eglin officials said. The Pentagon pronounced the test a success but Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld declined to say if it would be used in a potential war with Iraq.
Many who heard the noise said it was not as loud as some other tests and exercises conducted at Eglin and adjacent Hurlburt Field where aerial gunships are based.
''It was actually much louder when they were practicing with the Abrams tanks about two or three months ago,'' said sheriff's Sgt. Mitch Tomlinson. ``To us, it's just the sound of freedom.''
MOAB is similar to but 40 percent heavier than the Air Force's next largest bomb, the 15,000-pound BLU-82, which also has been known to send up a mushroom cloud. In the Persian Gulf War, it was used to clear minefields.
The BLU-82, known as the ''daisy cutter,'' was developed during the Vietnam War to clear helicopter landing zones in the jungle and was billed as the world's most powerful non-nuclear bomb until MOAB came along.
Retired orthodontist Don Parker said the windows rattled at his Navarre home where he is used to hearing night exercises.
''It thought it was a sonic boom at first but it lasted longer,'' Parker said. ``The noises that we hear at night sound like a Gatling gun whereas this was just one big loud boom.''
Retired Air Force Chief Master Sgt. Don Holtz was at Hurlburt paying for gas at the base filling station when he heard the distant boom and felt a rush of air from the explosion's shock wave.
''I felt the air hit the window and come back and hit me,'' Holtz said. ``It wasn't very much, like a puff, really.''
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Posted on Tue, Mar. 11, 2003
'Massive' Air Force bomb tested at Eglin; nearby buildings shook
By The Associated Press
More photos AP/Department of Defense
In this image from video, the cloud rises after detonation of U.S. Air Force's Massive Ordnance Air Blast, or MOAB, Tuesday in Florida, after a test of the biggest bomb in the U.S. arsenal.
NAVARRE - Buildings shook, windows rattled and a white mushroom cloud could be seen for miles on Eglin Air Force Base where the largest conventional bomb in the U.S. military's arsenal was tested for the first time Tuesday.
The 21,000-pound MOAB, officially the Massive Ordnance Air Blast but unofficially called the ''Mother of All Bombs,'' created a dust cloud that 1st Lt. Karen Roganov, a public affairs officer, saw from atop the base headquarters building 30 miles away from the test range.
''It looked like a white mushroom cloud,'' Roganov said. ``It was kind of billowy like cotton or clouds. It didn't look like an A-bomb where it expands and contracts quickly. It was a lingering mushroom cloud.''
She said she saw the blast several seconds before hearing a ``small boom.''
The blast could be heard but not seen in Navarre on the southwestern edge of Eglin, which is two-thirds the size of Rhode Island and sprawls across 724 square miles of the Florida Panhandle.
''It was just a boom. It shook the building,'' said Lynn Jones, a Santa Rosa County sheriff's public service technician at the Navarre substation. ``I wasn't expecting it. It kind of scared me at first.''
The bomb exploded shortly after 1 p.m. CST after being dropped from the rear of a C-130 transport plane and guided to its target by satellite signals, Eglin officials said. The Pentagon pronounced the test a success but Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld declined to say if it would be used in a potential war with Iraq.
Many who heard the noise said it was not as loud as some other tests and exercises conducted at Eglin and adjacent Hurlburt Field where aerial gunships are based.
''It was actually much louder when they were practicing with the Abrams tanks about two or three months ago,'' said sheriff's Sgt. Mitch Tomlinson. ``To us, it's just the sound of freedom.''
MOAB is similar to but 40 percent heavier than the Air Force's next largest bomb, the 15,000-pound BLU-82, which also has been known to send up a mushroom cloud. In the Persian Gulf War, it was used to clear minefields.
The BLU-82, known as the ''daisy cutter,'' was developed during the Vietnam War to clear helicopter landing zones in the jungle and was billed as the world's most powerful non-nuclear bomb until MOAB came along.
Retired orthodontist Don Parker said the windows rattled at his Navarre home where he is used to hearing night exercises.
''It thought it was a sonic boom at first but it lasted longer,'' Parker said. ``The noises that we hear at night sound like a Gatling gun whereas this was just one big loud boom.''
Retired Air Force Chief Master Sgt. Don Holtz was at Hurlburt paying for gas at the base filling station when he heard the distant boom and felt a rush of air from the explosion's shock wave.
''I felt the air hit the window and come back and hit me,'' Holtz said. ``It wasn't very much, like a puff, really.''