Since 2018, a group of volunteers has been reclaiming Baltimore’s Nike base BA-79 from a 50 year onslaught by Mother Nature.
After removing vegetation and pumping out the magazines, they’ve been diligently cleaning and painting the buildings and two magazines, enough so that monthly public tours were started last summer.
But there’s just one thing missing…a missile. And what’s a Nike base without a missile?
Enter Dave Zuchero, who committed last year to constructing a ½ scale (20 foot long) replica of a Nike Hercule for display. “I made a 5-foot tall rocket powered Nike Hercules model during COVID,” said Zuchero, “so I thought, how much harder could this it be?” Together Arnie Goluboff, another volunteer and a man with MacGyver-like talents, they began construction of the missile in April 2024. And they soon found out that it was a lot harder.
“We had to invent fabrication techniques and tools to make this happen”, said Zuchero. The six-foot nose cone and four-foot tail cone of the missile section were made from sheets of 2 inch think foam insulation board laminated together and turned on a giant lathe constructed from a section of scaffolding and turned by a power drill.
The entire Nike Hercules replica is made from cardboard tubes, foam board and fiberglass. “If we had the right tooling, it would have been easier to make it out of metal like the real thing,” said Zuchero.
Now, just over a year later, the missile is almost complete and going on public display. “We still have some work to do,” said Zuchero. “The elevons aren’t finished and the marking are still being printed but, it’s looking pretty good right now!”
The first public display of the replica Nike Hercules will be April 27, 2025, at BA-79’s first open house of the year. For more information, see BA-79 Nike Missile Base Facebook page.