This color educational/promotional film is about products made by Northrop Aircraft, Inc. and its various divisions, emphasizing the high tech manufacture and testing of components for aircraft and missiles. This is circa the late 1950s, as the Snark missile which is shown was deployed 1958-1961.
Opening titles: Northrop Aircraft, Inc., Nortronics Division in Anaheim and Hawthorne, California, Radioplane in El Paso, Texas and Van Nuys, California, Northrop Division in Hawthorne (:06-:47). A Cushman scooter moves fast around the property, passes a Snark missile. Test Laboratories building. Test Laboratory. Engineers work inside. A model of a plane being tested in a wind tunnel and altitude chamber. Types of machines are tested: C-100s, electro-hydraulic shaker machines. Men draw up planes in an office. Contour milling equipment. Infrared lamps heat metals for stamping..Autoclaves. Boeing KC-135 wing panels are being made (:48-3:15). Automation. Machines work, men write things down. A profile mill. A press machine. Verson machine. Stretch presses. Big sub assemblies. Pieces of USAF Boeing KC-135 and 707s. Men at machines doing all sorts of work. Sheets of metal being pulled off a machine. Women sew. F-89 Scorpion jet comes off assembly line. A Snark intercontinental missile is rolled out at Hawthorne (3:16-4:57). A Hawk anti-aircraft missile is fired in the desert. It hits a test plane and explodes. P-61 Black Widow airplanes. F-89 Scorpion. Smoke plume in the sky. Intercontinental Weapons System. Snark missile in the sky. T-38 twin engine jet trainer is rolled out of a hangar. Atomic mushroom cloud in the air from an atomic rocket test (5:40). N-156 fighter is shown being rolled out of a hangar. Another jet is rolled out (4:58-6:38). A test plane goes fast in the desert. A missile lands. Experimental planes fly. John Paul Stapp rides the Sonic Wind rocket sled (7:09). Research, engineering, and manufacturing teams of Northrop. A Snark is launched with JATO assist, and the rockets fall away as they are expended. Outer space (6:39-7:51). End credits (7:52-7:56).
The Northrop SM-62 Snark was an early-model intercontinental range ground-launched cruise missile that could carry a W39 thermonuclear warhead.
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This film is part of the Periscope Film LLC archive, one of the largest historic military, transportation, and aviation stock footage collections in the USA. Entirely film backed, this material is available for licensing in 24p HD and 2k. For more information visit http://www.PeriscopeFilm.com
