This week in AFLCMC history - March 7 - March 11, 2022

  • Published
  • By AFLCMC History Office
In this edition of Heritage Hangar, you'll learn about old and new airplanes and tidbits of what happened this week many years ago. 

 07 Mar 1958 (Digital Directorate—Hanscom AFB) 

A plan for establishing the Air Defense System Integration Division (ADSID) was presented to the AF council. The growth of electronic systems for an integrated continental air defense system required an a single entity to coordinate their acquisition. In 1957, this was the Air Defense Systems Management Office, but was upgraded to ADSID the following year. ADSID represented the development piece for Air Research and Development Command, with Air Materiel Command for logistics and Air Defense Command for operational use. ADSID was subsumed in 1960 by the AF Command and Control Development Division (AFCCDD), which itself became the heart of the new Electronic Systems Division (ESD) at Hanscom in 1961. Major Gen Kenneth Bergquist was the first commander of ADSIC, AFCCDD, and ESD. 

08 Mar 1941 (Tinker AFB) 
 

An Army Air Corps Site Selection Board arrived in Oklahoma City to evaluate areas proposed by local officials for a new depot: one north of Norman, OK, on State Highway 74 and another on SE 29th Street. The two sides generally agreed that the 29th Street location met the requirements and that a formal decision would be made soon. Exactly a month later, Assistant Secretary of War announced the construction of a $14 million depot covering 1500 acres and employing 3500 people would go to Oklahoma City. Pearl Harbor drastically raised those figures just a few months later. The facility, later dubbed Tinker Field, formally opened in March 1942. 
 
09 Mar 1959 (ISR & SOF Dir.—Big Safari) 


The last of four Convair T-29A aircraft arrived at the company’s Ft. Worth facility for modification under Big Safari as the CT-29A CAR-OL ANN. T-29s were airliners procured by the military for navigator training. These four were modified to join the series of aircraft designed to covertly photograph East Germany during flights in the Berlin air corridor, while looking externally identical to the standard version (one of the four shown here pre-modification). The Carol Ann configuration consisted primarily of multiple hidden cameras and a false bulkhead to hide the operator station. These operated until 1963. 

10 Mar 1984 (Fighters & Adv. Aircraft Dir/Hill AFB) 

Captain Joe Gelinger of the 466th Tactical Fighter Squadron flew a two-seat Republic F-105F Thunderchief, tail number 63-8287 (a similar one is shown here), from Hill AFB to Chanute AFB, Illinois, for the final flight of the “Thud.” The F-105 first flew in 1955 as a nuclear-capable strike aircraft, but was modified for multiple uses, including as the first “Wild Weasels” for suppression of enemy air defenses. It was mostly known as a heavy strike fighter during the Vietnam War, capable of Mach 2 speeds. 

11 Mar 1941 (Hill AFB) 

Crews finished construction on the new Fire, Guard, and Communications Building at what became Hill AFB. Work began on the project on 20 May 1940 and the total cost was $43,983. This was just one of about a dozen major projects on-going during that time period as part of the first wave of building at the new Ogden Air Depot. The Works Progress Administration, one of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s agencies created to provide jobs during the Great Depression, did much of the work. 

12 Mar 1951 (Mobility & Training Aircraft Dir.) 

The Air Force issued the Specific Operating Requirement for a medium-sized transport aircraft capable of long range and landing on unimproved airfields to replace the C-119 “Flying Boxcar.” This followed the 2 Feb 1951 General Operating Requirement. Boeing, Douglas, Fairchild, and Lockheed responded to the request for proposals. Lockheed’s winning design used four turboprop engines for a combination of higher speed than piston engines and better fuel economy than turbojets. The design was famously derided by Lockheed’s chief designer, Kelly Johnson, but the resulting C-130 Hercules has proven to be one of the most successful cargo planes of all time. 

13 Mar 1961 (Mobility & Training Aircraft Dir.) 

President John F. Kennedy announced that Lockheed Aircraft Corp. had won the competition over Boeing, Douglas, and Convair to built the Air Force’s first jet-powered cargo plane, which became the C-141 Starlifter. Specific Operational Requirement #182, from 15 November 1960 for a dedicated, long-range jet transport, emerged as a direct result of the Air Force’s experience during the Berlin Airlift in 1948-1949 and the Korean War. These events highlighted the need to support a “flexible response” military posture throughout the world. Examples of the Starlifter are in the photo gallery above. 

This Week in AFLCMC History Highlight: 07/10 March 1924 

On 7 March 7 1924, Maj William Frank, Executive Officer for Air Service Chief Gen Mason Patrick, wrote a memo finalizing the significant changes to the aircraft acquisition process that he and Patrick had spent months hammering out. Patrick approved the memo, sending it to the Air Service Engineering Division at McCook Field to implement immediately. 

General Patrick had taken over the Air Service in 1921 to replace the ineffectual Gen Charles Menoher and saw it as his task to stabilize and reform the organization that had been struggling to adjust to the post-World War I political environment. He had inherited an Air Service that had been repeatedly investigated for its wartime production woes, a parsimonious Congress, a fiercely independent and polemical deputy in Gen Billy Mitchell, and an Engineering Division in Dayton that had become comfortable in its own expertise and receiving the lion’s share of increasingly meager appropriations. 

Determined, methodical, and patient, Gen Patrick viewed reforming McCook Field as central to alleviating his primary concerns. In the early 1920s, the acquisition process worked like this: the Air Service asked for funds, Congress allocated more or less, HQ decided what types of planes it needed and how many, the Engineering Division solicited and evaluated designs to meets its specifications, and awarded production con-tracts. Patrick took exception to these final steps. The Air Service only paid for a winning design, meaning all other competitors who built prototypes at their own expense received nothing. Furthermore, the Engineering Division competed those entries against concepts it designed and built entirely in-house. The government then purchased the rights to the winning design, which it then opened up for production bids to anyone. Rules stipulated that those contracts went to the lowest bidder, regardless of ability to actually build the planes properly and on-cost. The entire system was a disincentive to procuring a quality air force. 

Aircraft manufacturers lobbied Gen Patrick for changes, which he agreed to. Congress changed acquisition legislation to keep design rights with the designer, but it was up to the Air Service Chief to cut the Engineering Division out of the loop. The March 7th memo was clear: McCook Field would no longer design or build planes, leaving its world-class aeronautical engineers as little more than inspectors and its mission as “simply a testing and development plant for aeronautical equipment.” When McCook Field chief Major Lawrence W. McIntosh received the memo on March 10, and vociferously objected in writing, Gen Patrick fired him. 

Patrick’s reforms significantly affected McCook Field. For the next decade, it never received more than $2.3 million in funding per year (it had $6M in 1921), there was a mass exodus of technical talent from civil service to industry, relations between contractors and McCook vastly improved because they no longer competed, and its organizational influence waned.