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Show Guided Missile Is Success in First Horizontal Test COCOA, Fla. The pushbutton war of the future may not be as far off as most people believe. The first successful flight of a guided long-range long-range missile was made at the Army's proving ground recently. A huge German V-2 rocket carrying carry-ing a smaller missile piggy-back made a thunderous climbing turn over the Atlantic. The V-2 got up to 2,700 miles an hour, and the smaller small-er nose-mounted missile, called the Wac Corporal went even faster perhaps 5,000 miles an hour. Its performance is a military secret. The two rockets, standing 60 feet from the ground to the "Wac Corporal's" Cor-poral's" nose, rose in, a burst of flame that brought the sound -of a thunderclap. From zero to 1,000 miles an hour was a matter of seconds. The two-stage two-stage projectile still spewed orange flame as it pierced a high cirrus cloud and disappeared. On the cloud an ominous black shadow appeared the shadow of the vapor trail. Power stayed on the V-2 only a minute. In that time 10 tons of liquid oxygen and alcohol were consumed. j Gyroscopic controls took effect soon after the vertical climb began and the thundering missile bent its path toward the sea. It was approaching ap-proaching a horizontal course as it disappeared. At 51,000 feet after only a minute and 20 seconds of flight, the "Wac Corporal" separated from the bigger big-ger rocket and sped away eastward on its own. How far it went wasn't immediately known. The intended range was in excess of 175 miles. The V-2 then traveled at 2,700 miles an hour. The speed of the smaller missile was described as "the sum of the two rockets", with no estimate made. Private estimates esti-mates ran as high as 5,000 miles an hour. After the "Wac Corporal" was gone, the V-2 went to a maximum height of 10 miles and started down. When it was down to 20,000 feet, a button was pressed exploding the captured German weapon. Its debris fell into the sea 48 miles offshore. |