This week in AFLCMC history - April 4 - April 8, 2022

  • Published
  • By Air Force Life Cycle Management Center 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. 

 04 Apr 1978 (Digital Directorate)

Raytheon energized one subarray of the south face of the Otis Air Force Base, Massachusetts, PAVE PAWS radar for one and hour and a half. PAVE PAWS was the name for the Sea-Launched Ballistic Missile (SLBM) Phased Array Warning System (PAWS) developed under the auspices of the Electronic Systems Division (ESD) at Hanscom AFB. Each PAVE PAWS installation had two AN/FPS-115 long-range phased array radars. The system was to detect and provide early warning for any submarine missile launches off the coasts of the United States. This test was part of the initial activation of the site, which still had a lengthy process to complete before being declared operational. 

05 Apr 1976 (AFLCMC)
 
The Office of Management and Budget’s Office of Federal Procurement Policy issued Circular A-109, “Major Systems Acquisition.” This was the embodiment of over two decades-worth of Congressional and Presidential frustration with Defense Department development and procurement that was characterized by delays, cost overruns, subpar performance, and contested awards. A Congressional Commission on Government Procurement was established in 1969 to identify root causes and propose solutions. The OMB absorbed these and conveyed them to the DoD and other executive agencies in this Circular. The major changes were: a mission-based approach to system requirements that required agency-head approval, and the extended use of competition for as far into the procurement phase as economically feasible. 

07 Apr 1955 (Mobility & Training Aircraft Dir.)

The first flight of a production model Lockheed C-130A Hercules occurred. The initial two prototypes, dubbed the YC-130, of the turbo-prop-driven cargo plane were built at Lockheed’s Burbank, California. One of those YC-130s first took to the air on 23 August 1954. The company moved Hercules production to the Lockheed-Georgia plant in Marietta, Georgia, where this plane was built and its first flight occurred. Production deliveries for Air Force began that December, followed by more than 2,500 C-130s in many different variants over the subsequent six decades. AFLCMC currently manages the C-130J production, as well as sustainment and modernization of the fleet and its Foreign Military Sales. 

08 Apr 1969 (Digital Directorate)

The Electronic Systems Division (ESD) at Hanscom signed con-tracts with Boeing and McDonnell Douglas to begin Phase B of Contract Definition for an Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) aircraft. These two $17.5 million contracts were part of the Overland Radar Technology program. During this phase, the contractors defined the system, conducted trade-off studies, assessed numbers of aircraft needed, proposed a potential configuration, and a established a “core configuration.” The Air Force chose Boeing in July 1970 as the winning contractor over McDonnell’s submission that used a DC-8 air-frame. The Boeing design, based on the commercial 707 air-frame, became the E-3A Sentry that continues to serve the Air Force and NATO. 

09 Apr 1958 (Fighters Dir./Mobility & Training Aircraft Dir.)

Test pilot John M. Fitzpatrick took the Convair F-106B Delta Dart on its first flight at Edwards AFB. This was the 2-seat trainer model of the supersonic, all-weather interceptor. Though intended for training, the – B model it still retained full combat capabilities. The F-106 was originally a derivative of the similar-looking F-102, but had extensive enough changes to warrant an entirely new designation. The earlier F-102B trainer had pilots sitting next to each other, but that proved problematic so the F-106B used the more common tandem arrangement. The Delta Dart served as the primary interceptor for continental air defense, but also was useful during dissimilar aircraft combat training as a surrogate for Soviet fighters like the Mig-21 that also used a delta-wing design. 

10 Apr 1959 (Mobility & Training Aircraft Dir.)

The first flight of the Northrop YT-38 Talon occurred at Edwards AFB. The design came from a private effort by the company to pair with the small, but powerful GE J85 engine in something akin to an early “lightweight fighter” concept. They instead sub-mitted it in response to an Air Force request for a supersonic trainer, winning the contract against North American’s F-100 Super Saber and becoming the first such trainer capable of exceeding Mach 1. Northrop built two prototypes, followed by over 1,100 T-38As that served generations of Air Force student pilots. It also became the basis for the F-5 and F-20 fighters. AFLCMC is currently in the process of replacing the T-38 fleet with the new Boeing T-7A Red Hawk (see photo above).

This Week in AFLCMC History Highlight: 06 April 1917

The United States declared war on Germany to enter World War I. 

France, Britain, Italy, and (for a time) Russia (the Allied Powers) had been at war with Germany and the Austo-Hungarian empire (the Central Powers) since the Fall of 1914, but the US clung to an increasingly thin veneer of neutrality for nearly two-and-a-half years. How-ever, its provisions of war materiel to its not-quite allies across the Atlantic provoked Germany into threatening suspect shipping with its formidable U-boat (submarine) force. The resultant “unrestricted submarine warfare” that sank American ships provided the impetus for President Woodrow Wilson to ask Congress to declare war on the Central Powers. Four days later, Congress executed its Constitutional authority to declare war, officially bringing the United States into The Great War.

It was obvious from the start that the United States was ill-prepared for such a massive endeavor. It had not mobilized military men and equipment at any significant scale since the Civil War and faced the entirely novel task of fighting such a conflict across an ocean. While there were many examples of the difficulties faced with mobilization, aircraft production became synonymous with the worst of those.

Even with war raging in Europe, the American government had invested pathetically little in domestic aviation, providing just $125,000 for the purpose in 1915, while France devoted nearly $7.5 million and even Mexico spent more. In its rush to compensate for this late start immediately after the declaration of war, Congress wrote what was effectively a blank check for military aviation: $640 million, more than it had appropriated for anything, ever in American history. 

While the next nineteen months were chaotic and frustrating for all those involved, the US Army Air Service (under the Signal Corps for about half that period) managed to lay down the basic organization and functions of an airplane acquisition system. The initial system was split generally between a civilian-led Bureau of Aircraft Production that determined how the money should be spent and the military Equipment Division that actually spent it. The Equipment Division, under Dayton industrialist Col Edward Deeds had most of the elements of the modern AFMC: Engineering Department (AFRL & elements of AFLCMC), Production (AFLCMC), and Supply & Depots (AFSC). Its physical footprint included Wilbur Wright Field and the Fairfield Air Depot that comprise the modern WPAFB’s Area A. 

The war concluded on 11 November 1918, but its impact on military aviation continues even today.