Bomarc Missile Program
The Bomarc Missile Program was a joint United States of America-Canada effort during 1957 to 1971 to protect against the USSR bomber threat. It involved the deployment of tactical stations armed with Bomarc missiles along east and west coasts of North America.The Bomarcs were capable of carrying conventional or nuclear warheads. Their intended role in defence was in an intrusion prevention perimeter. Bomarcs aligned on the eastern and western coasts of North America would theoretically launch and disintegrate enemy bombers before the bombers could drop their payload on industrial regions.
The name Bomarc was conceived as a merge of the two organisations who played the most prominent roles in its creation: Boeing and the Michigan Aeronautical Research Center (MARC).
The Bomarc IM-99A was the first production Bomarc missile. It had an operational radius of 200 miles and was designed to fly at Mach 2.5 at a cruising altitude of 60 000 feet.
The Super Bomarc IM-99B was the 99A's successor with improvements to its operational parameters. It was capable of striking targets within a radius of 400 miles and able to fly at Mach 4 as high as 100 000 feet.
IBM designed an additional component to this called SAGE which allowed for remote launching of the Bomarc missiles.
At the height of the program there were 14 Bomarc sites located in the United States and two in Canada.