I knew about the converted one, I've seen pictures of it from a friend of
mine that visited the people but can't remember where it was located. I
wouldn't have guessed that since Start that anyone could utilize a recently
deactivated silo as part of the treaty inspections was onsite verification
that the site(s) were made useless, usually by filling with concrete or by
imploding with explosives. I went out on one in Wyoming in 92 as aprt of an
inspection team and it was a site and sound when the charges went off. What
really sucked was that they ground up full B-52s into scraps that weren't
even active anymore in IL, they were used for static display and training.
No engines, just pods.
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org
[mailto:owner-classiccmp@classiccmp.org]On Behalf Of Chuck McManis
Sent: Thursday, April 12, 2001 1:49 PM
To: classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org
Subject: Re: Arizona trip
For the last 5 to 10 years you could _buy_ a silo from the Gov't
as long as
you promised not to reactivate it :-) There is an article in Popular
Science about a couple that converted one to living space.
At a dinner I attended one person there claimed to have bought
one (can you
say crazy but lucky Silicon Valley type that got out of the market in
time?) and has been renovating it for living/storage space. There were
several different types, the vertical Titan II types and the horizontal
Minuteman types. (He has a vertical one I believe) It had quite a bit of
equipment left behind in it that wasn't considered worth either
destroying
or hauling out (much gear was carried in as pieces and assembled inside).
The most useful thing that he has salvaged was the Onan 50Kw power
generator that supplies power, the "coolest" thing is the "scram
lift" that
gets you down to the bottom really quickly.
Now frankly he certainly had the means to pull this off but I
give his tale
only about 40% credibility rating as there is something of the story
telling aspect to it. He offered a tour when it was done so I'll
follow up
when I get his call to come visit ...
--Chuck
At 02:12 PM 4/12/2001 -0400, jeff wrote:
I don't know if it was for
Titan's, but I ran across a
webpage a
couple of years ago that showed a photographic
tour of a missle
silo that
the photographer and his buddy had managed to
gain access to. The silo
had been under padlock and parts of it were flooded and/or
caved in, but
there were still parts to equipment and such down
there. It was pretty
interesting.