Operation Teapot

 

On this day in 1955, a Convair B-36H assigned to the 4925th Test Group (Atomic) at Kirtland Air Force Base, New Mexico dropped an atomic weapon from 42,000 feet over the Nevada Test Site, Area 1. Operation Teapot was authorized by President Eisenhower on 30 August 1954. This series of fourteen shots proof-tested a broad variety of fission devices with low to moderate yields. The bomb detonated at 36,620 feet with an explosive force of 3.2 kilotons. The bomb was parachute-retarded to slow its fall so that the bomber could escape its blast effects. Because of the altitude of the explosion, there was no significant fallout. The airdrop was a Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory high-altitude test of an air-to-air missile warhead. It was the only parachute weapon drop ever conducted at the Nevada Test Site.

Though the B-36 was the only aircraft in the USAF inventory capable of carrying the largest atomic weapon at the time, this Teapot test, Shot HA (high altitude), used a 125-pound warhead encased in a 1,085-pound ballistic case.