This article originally appeared in the Bristol Daily Courier - May, 1956.
Pomeroy's Community Room Has Nike Demonstration
The Army's rigid guard around the Bristol township NIKE base, Route 413 and the Pennsylvania Turnipike is no long a "barrier" t o curious Lower Bucks County residents who wonder what is inside.
An exhibit that opened Tuesday in the COmmunity Room of Pomeroy's Levittown department store, in the Shopping Center, gives a vivid portrayal of what the NIKE missile is, what it can do and how it works.
Sponsored by the Western Electric Co. manufacturers of the intricate radar and electronic "brains" that operate NIKE, the exhibit will remain at Pomeroy's until May 10.
A rocket-powered guided missile of lange range and faster than sound, the NIKE is set off automatically. It will outrace and out-maneuver any foreign aircraft that may escape our shore defenses and destroy it.
The exhibit, a small electronic complexity itself, was set up by Bill Clooper, of Philadelphia, a Bell Telephone installer, who will remain on hand to help visitors grasp the story. The Bell Laboratories did research on the complex NIKE and its controls; Western Electric, of the Bell System, manufactures it.
Using a combination of models, moving lights, and illumintated color photographs, it starts with the description of a NIKE base and ends with the explosion of a Nike missile that has found its mark in the air.
The three radars are seen in operation, alongside the trailers that house their electronic brains, the acquisition radar, that scans the skies looking for aircraft, the target tracking radar that focuses on the airborne intruder and the missile tracking radar that directs the deadly missile after the enemy aloft.
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