So what in the heck is a MITO, you ask? Well, it's a mass launch of a bunch of airplanes with minimum (M) interval (I) between Take (T) offs (O). And it is a truly spectacular thing to behold. It's even more exciting to participate in a MITO.

So what's all this got to do with marshmallows, you ask? That's just a bit of gallows humor, an inside joke amongst flight crews. The MITO's for practice were usually scheduled events that crews and others on Strategic Air Command (SAC) bases knew about up to a week in advance.

Those mass take-offs were so spectacular and interesting that folks used to drive their cars, loaded with family, friends and neighbors, to the perimeter road around the base and park there to watch the MITO event. Some crew members joked that the spectators were there with their marshmallows, ready to roast them in the fire of a potential crash. Sick, eh?

The interval between planes taking off, as many as a dozen or so at a time, depended upon the size of the runway, its width, and the airplanes, their wing span. Large birds, like B-52's could not take off side-by-side down the runway, so they'd be spaced just a few seconds apart, typically at 15 second intervals. Smaller planes, like B-58's or FB-111's could be staggered, left and right, down wide runways. They could go at seven and a half second intervals. There were attempts to make the big planes go at the smaller interval, but that didn't always work out.

The reason for MITO's in the first place was to get the war-loaded alert airplanes off the ground as quickly as possible. The advent of enemy submarine-launched medium-range-ballistic-missiles (MRBM's) gave flight crews much shorter times to get their airplanes out of harm's way. Before MRBM's there might have been 20 or 30 minutes warning time, but that was cut in half with the new threats. Hence a technique for quickly launching all available alert airplanes, the MITO, was developed. And MITO's are not all that easy to do, hence practice launches were conducted from time to time.

Imagine that you are in the cockpit of a MITO launching airplane. If you were in the lead spot it would be a normal launch with nobody up there just in front of you. But back in the pack you get a different view. It's analogous to what the sled dogs view of those up front. There ain't much scenery, but you'd better stay in your place.

The 2nd, 3rd and remainder airplanes get a lot of smoke in their faces, considerable noise in the cockpit and quite a bit of turbulence from those jet engines spewing out high-velocity hot gases. You kinda hope there was a light crosswind to minimize your discomfort and improve forward visibility.

And, of course, you hope like the dickens that the fellows in front of you don't have a problem. For if they blow a tire, lose engines or otherwise slow down unexpectedly, you've got a real problem. That's why it's "pucker time" for everyone except the lead ship. But then too, if you are in the lead ship and suddenly slow down, you've got a bunch of roaring monsters on your tail. And then what do you do?

For the ground observers, those folks along the runway perimeter with the marshmallows, the MITO was exciting, a truly awe-inspiring sight.