What was sidestepped were the dozens of often inane safety, security, or technical procedures required by regulation, most of which were designed to keep the inept from causing problems to themselves and equipment, at the expense of those gifted with a little common sense. All the missile bases have some pet term for this shortcutting; at Grand Forks, the practice was known as "swooping", named after a ranking NCO who got caught in the act, redhanded. An example of how "swooping" saved time and effort: the standard methods of requesting access, opening, properly inspecting, then closing, waiting for the alarm system to reset, and getting departure permission for a missile silo usually was a 2-hours-plus process. This does not include any actual work done in the facility; this was just getting in and out, known as "Penetration & Backout". By taking all the right shortcuts, one of the more accomplished "swoop" teams held an unofficial 'Pen & Backout' record of only 32 minutes, and they installed an electronic drawer in the silo equipment rooms to fix a problem, to boot!

Another aspect to "swooping" was the fact that, while it was officially heinous, it was unofficially ignored or even condoned in rare cases. Since most of the Job Controllers and Supervisors are former missile technicians themselves, they well know that sometimes the workload can't be accomplished "by the book" with the manpower involved, without taking a few shortcuts. And they also know that in some cases, the "book" can actually prevent a team from getting the job done. An example: quality inspectors dispatched to watch a maintenance team troubleshoot a faulty missile computer cooling system. While the team could tell which piece of hardware was bad by the obvious erratic indications it was giving, the restrictive troubleshooting procedures in "the book" did not refer to the symptoms, and the team had no choice but to spend the entire dispatch troubleshooting the entire system in the hopes that some indication would condemn the bad part. They left an unsuccessful 14 hours later, the missile still off-alert, and went to spend the night at a Launch Control Facility, since their timeline had expired. Quality Inspectors left, a relief team went into the silo, replaced the faulty part, and had the missile back on alert status within the hour. Since it was well communicated that the previous team had exhausted "the book", it was obvious to controllers and commander alike that "swooping" had gotten the site back on alert. Yet that very commander made a special effort to meet the relief team as they arrived back at base in the wee hours of the morning, and thanked them heartily for a job, well done.

Of course, getting caught blatantly ignoring or bypassing rules was a major offense. Failing to use safety gear during Pen & Backout (which often caused more accidents than it prevented due to poor design) was supposedly the ultimate crime, but security violations were actually punished much more harshly. Experienced Team Chiefs who were "swoopers" did not usually get caught, mainly because they knew the right people to talk to. Since a truck bearing Supervisors or Quality Inspectors cannot travel in the Missile Field without the proper clearances, a Team Chief had only to make phone calls before or during the dispatch to find out who was cleared for his area, and remove any surprises.

The hide & seek game that teams and inspectors played, trying not to be caught - or do the catching - was a two-way street. There were little tricks inspectors and supervisors could pull to delay or change the information about their dispatch until the last minute, and thereby sneak up on the team to be inspected. To mitigate this, teams would often park their truck to block the view of the silo access areas during daytime, and at night would leave the topside floodlighting turned off, and work by flashlight when opening the silo. So it was usually very difficult to actually catch a team "swooping".

But this did not stop some from trying, especially new-to-the-unit supervision people, looking to give a "not on my watch" impression. But being new, things seldom went as planned:

One new "butterbar" 2nd Lieutenant planned such a trip to watch a team on a late night dispatch, and hoped to catch them unawares. While he got a few tips and did indeed manage to keep his dispatch information a surprise, he still had too many factors against him. For a short while he got lost, primarily because he had expected to be hunting a well lit spot in the middle of flat farm fields. Instead, the team had the lights off, and the access road's view of the site was blocked by both the team's truck, and a hill. As the lieutenant drove back and forth past the darkened site, the Team Chief grew suspicious of a vehicle prowling at that hour, and had his team member climb a floodlight pole to peek over the hill. His Teamie warned those below, who promptly became a frenzy of activity putting things in inspection order, on a superficial level. The lieutenant finally located the site, and processed on, wanting to know why the lights were off - it was demonstrated to him that they were inoperative, although no one told him that the circuit breaker for them was conveniently turned OFF. As he waited for the team to finish opening the silo access (in the correct manner, this time), he decided to take a stroll around the site grounds - in the dark. Bad move. The only light visible was from the small access hatch opened to the silo; light from it reflected from the Lieutenant's glasses as two glowing dots. Suddenly he let out a whoop! and the two dots took off sideways, and then downward, at a high rate of speed. There was a splash, and the team's flashlights were rushed over to find the Lieutenant lying in the mud, near where he had stepped off a 3 foot high wall next to the silo door. Gooey and still clueless of all that had transpired on the site, he left after a short while as the team chuckled and buttoned up the silo, once again in "full-swoop" mode.