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A Bombshell Job

So What If The Missiles Are Fake? This Shop Gets To Fix Them

Kathy Waters/Highlands Today

The SA-2 surface to air missile is a mock Soviet made missile from the Cold War era.

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By Bill Rettew Jr. | Highlands Today

Published: May 22, 2008

SEBRING — Gawkers keep asking Eddie Talley whether the 38-foot-long missile at his welder's shop could blow up.

"It's a running joke," said Talley. "They ask if it's real, and we say it is. You should see the expression on their faces. It freaks them out."

The missile at T-N-T Welding near Sebring HiIls, just a block off U.S. 27, is a reproduction and a fake.
The Avon Park Air Force Range hired Talley to repair the two mock missiles.

U.S. Air Force personnel at the range use the mock missiles for bombing practice. Talley said welding repairs were warranted, due to what appeared to be direct hits to the 2,000-pound missile, which is made of sheet metal.

Police escorted Talley when the first of two missiles was trucked back to the bombing range after the repair work.

Not much later, the second mock missile – severely damaged – took the same route, in reverse, to the welder's shop.

"We got a lot of looks," said Talley with mischievous grin, "especially when we came back. Some construction workers wondered what happened. It looked like we took the same one out there and we were hauling it back."

Hal Sullivan is a range operation technician and said no live bombs are used at the range, east of Avon Park.

Sullivan said the pair of missiles was designed to resemble Russian Cold War-era AW-2 surface to air missiles. They are used as targets for planes flying from 500 to 40,000 feet above ground.
The missiles' life expectancy is about two years, which varies, depending on how many direct hits they take.

"When you hit these, it's like throwing a big grapefruit through the target – it punches a hole," said Sullivan.

To those wondering why recycle a sheet metal bomb that needs two welders a week to repair, Sullivan has an answer.

"We want to make it to be as real looking as possible," he said. "It's pretty much to scale. When the pilots see them for real over in Afghanistan or Iraq, they can recognize them. The cost is minimal.
"We use things as long as we can. We're good stewards of the taxpayer's money."

Pilots at high altitudes use sensors rather than eye contact. Intelligence updates notify pilots where targets are located prior to take-off.

Johnny Espinoza welded Wednesday from inside the garage. Outside, a light drizzle fell on half the missile. The exposed sheet metal tube stretched far into the parking lot.

"When you get something like this from the bombing range all mangled up, and get to straighten it out, the result is pure satisfaction," said Espinoza.

Eddie Talley and wife, Pat, talked about typical welding jobs, which include work on trailer hitches, trailers and even roll bars for hot rods.

"I like doing stuff that's different," said Eddie Talley.

"But we never know what's going to come through the front door," Pat Talley added .

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