During the Cold War, the possibility of a nuclear attack was not a remote hypothesis. It was a scenario contemplated, calculated and rehearsed. It was estimated that an atomic explosion in the atmosphere could generate an electromagnetic pulse capable of reasonscommunications, electrical networks and command systems. In that context, the United States launched an ambitious test program to ensure that its strategic aircraft could resist that type of threat. They could not afford an electronic failure to stop fighting a bomber like the B-52. Thus was born TresTle (Atlas-I), a colossal installation raised near the Kirtland Air Base, in New Mexico. Its purpose was as singular as its design: simulate, without the need for explosives, the effects of a nuclear detonation on real aircraft.
As they point out in Motorpasion, to create a reliable test environment, it was essential to eliminate any interference. Even the platform itself had to become “invisible” to the phenomenon that was tried to reproduce. The solution was as radical as ingenious: to build the main structure almost without metal, using laminated wood, fiberglass bolts and techniques of more advanced civil engineering. The result remembered a railway bridge suspended on a ravine in the middle of the desert. More than 35 meters from the ground, the airplanes were towed on a wooden track and exposed to controlled energy bursts that imitated the behavior of an electromagnetic pulse. It was a way to recreate, with extreme precision and without a single nuclear explosion, the invisible effects of a war that should never occur.
A colossal structure to protect the nucleus from US military power
The mind behind the project was Carl E. Baum, an electrical engineer of meticulous thought that dedicated more than four decades to the Air Force. It was he who proposed to build a high and non -conductive platform to simulate a realistic flight environment, free of interference. His proposal was not a heart, but the fruit of years of study on the effects of Electromagnetic pulses. At a time when computers could barely model complex phenomena, Baum defended that there was only a reliable way to understand the impact of an EMP on an airplane: apply it directly on a real aircraft, without computer shortcuts or synthetic recreations. He himself avoided the use of computers, although his team did use them.
Decades later, super -organizers such as the Captain are capable of simulating nuclear explosions in three dimensions with an unthinkable precision in the seventies. But then, neither the calculations were so sophisticated nor the models so reliable. Baum preferred pencil, perforated paper and hand -drawn transparencies. While the world began to imagine a defense supported by simulations, he designed a physical environment, almost completely assembled in wood, to test with real energy what one day could decide the fate of a country.
Building such an installation was not only a matter of size, but of intention. The Trestele complex should be immense, but also not disturbing for experiments. To achieve this, almost all the metal materials of the test platform were removed: even the screws were made of wood or fiberglass. The main board measured about 61 meters sidealthough it was not a perfect square: its corners were cut to improve structural efficiency, which slightly reduced its useful surface. The whole set was held on a ravine in the Kirtland air base, so that the plane was suspended as if it were in full flight. The total length of the complex exceeded 300 meters. Each component was designed not to interfere with the reproduction of the phenomenon, although other parts of the installation, such as the Wedge building or the termination tower, they were made of steel.
The Trestele test structure in the 1980s
The airplanes were towed to the platform using a wooden ramp of about 120 meters. Once in position, they were subjected to discharges of very high intensity generated by an electrical system capable of loyalty replicating the conditions of a nuclear electromagnetic pulse. Two Marx generators, housed in sealed compartments, launched impulses of about 5 million volts each. It was not about destroying the plane, but to verify how their systems responded to an invisible threat, capable of burning unprotected circuits, with the aim of reinforcing them to continue working after a real attack.
A B-52H Stratofortress in the Barksdale Air Base, Luisiana (2021)
Some of the most strategic aircraft in the United States passed through the Platform of the Tressel. The B-52 bomber, emblem of nuclear deterrence, was one of the first to submit to the tests. It was followed by models such as EC-135, designed to maintain the chain of command in case of crisis, and E-4, also known as “the final judgment plane.” Everyone shared a critical mission: to follow operational even if the rest of the country was incommunicado. What was tested was not just the resistance of a cell or the integrity of a radar. It was the ability to preserve intact the core of military power in the worst imaginable scenario.
For decades, TresTle was one of the largest wooden structures ever built. His scale was huge. To keep it standing, more than 60,000 dielectric bolts were used only on the board and the ramp, although more than 150,000 special bolts without metal were used throughout the installation. That is added millions of laminated wood pieces. Although today the Grand Ring of Expo 2025 in Osaka has been officially recognized by Guinness as the largest wooden architectural structure in the world, the Trestle maintained that title in an unofficial way.
Images | United States Air Force (1, 2, 3, 4, 5)
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