30th Tactical Missile Squadron
The 30th Tactical Missile Squadron is an inactive United States Air Force unit. In 1985 the squadron was formed by combining three United States Air Force and Army Air Forces units that had served in World War II and the Cold War into a single unit with a common heritage. However, the combined unit has not since been active.
A CIM-10 Bomarc missile battery at Fort Dix
A-26 Invaders of the 669th Bomb Squadron, 1945
A TM-61 Matador on its launcher near Hahn Air Base
The Martin MGM-1 Matador was the first operational surface-to-surface cruise missile designed and built by the United States. It was developed after World War II, drawing upon their wartime experience with creating the Republic-Ford JB-2, a copy of the German V-1. The Matador was similar in concept to the V-1, but it included a radio command that allowed in-flight course corrections. This allowed accuracy to be maintained over greatly extended ranges of just under 1000 km. To allow these ranges, the Matador was powered by a small turbojet engine in place of the V-1's much less efficient pulsejet.
MGM-1 Matador
A Matador missile on its launcher near Hahn Air Base, West Germany.
A Matador missile at Gatow, Germany.
Unrestored Matador Missile from Florence Air and Missile Museum at Carolinas Aviation Museum in Charlotte, North Carolina (KCLT)