Shock and Awe: NIKE Missile on Display at Dream Machines Show

Visitors to this year’s Pacific Coast Dream Machines Show, Saturday and Sunday, April 28-29 at Half Moon Bay Airport, are in for a rare opportunity and very special treat.

A NIKE HERCULES missile from Site SF-88 will be on display with National Park Service staff and interpreters giving on-going presentations during the event.

"It’s a great chance to learn about and see a critical Cold War weapon up close," said Site SF-88 manager John Porter.

NIKE Missile Site SF-88 lies nestled in the low coastal hills of Marin County, just west of the Golden Gate Bridge.

The base is typical of more than 300 identical missile batteries that once guarded U.S. cities and military installations as the last line of defense against Soviet bombers (eleven NIKE sites ringed San Francisco Bay alone during the 1950s).

Site SF-88 is unique — it is the only NIKE missile battery in the country preserved in its historic appearance.

Today, it offers visitors a rare opportunity to visit a complete missile installation and learn the history of America's defenses during the Cold War.

During World War II, the world's nations learned a painful lesson. High-altitude bombers dropping tons of explosives — or nuclear weapons — could level entire cities.

New defensive measures were needed, and in early 1945 the U.S. Army began developing a radar-guided missile capable of knocking down enemy planes flying higher and faster than any gun could hope
to reach.

Visiting SF-88 The National Park Service and a crew of dedicated volunteers preserve Site SF-88 as it looked at time of its deactivation, complete with three HERCULES missiles housed in cavernous underground magazines. SF-88 is open for visiting from Wednesday to Friday of every week as well as the first Saturday of every month. Visiting hours are from 12:30 to 3:30 p.m. The site is closed during wet weather for your safety. During the week, our site manager leads periodic tours of the RADAR vans, the fueling area and the missile magazine. During the first Saturday of every month we have an open house with volunteers and Nike Veterans interpreting each of the areas on the base.

The research led to the development of the original "NIKE" missile in 1951. (The United States once named its rockets and missiles after mythological figures, and NIKE was the Greek goddess of victory.)

Site SF-88 at Fort Barry, constructed in 1954-55, originally housed a battery of twenty NIKE-AJAX missiles.

These early surface-to-air missiles, equipped with liquid fuel engines, could knock down an enemy airplane traveling at Mach 2.5 (two and a half times the speed of sound) at a range of 25 miles.

In 1959, Site SF-88 was re-equipped with larger and more powerful NIKE-HERCULES missiles. These "birds" had a range of 87 miles and could hit a plane traveling at Mach 3.5 at an altitude of 28 miles.

In addition to a conventional high-explosive warhead, the HERCULES could carry a nuclear warhead capable of destroying entire formations of enemy planes.

No missile was ever launched from Site SF-88, or from any of the nearly 300 other permanent NIKE sites protecting the continental United States.

Although "state of the art" in the 1950s, the system became obsolete during the late 1960s; the missiles could destroy any conventional aircraft, but they could not shoot down the newer Inter-Continental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs) developed by the world's super power nations.