This week in AFLCMC history and spotlight on WPAFB Published Dec. 7, 2021 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. 06 Dec 1967 (Armaments Directorate) The first flight test drop of a “dummy” unpowered AGM-69A Short Range Attack Missile (SRAM). The program originated in a 1963 requirement for an all-weather, tactical air-to-surface nuclear missile intended to eliminate opposing surface-to-air missile (SAM) air defense batteries from stand-off ranges. It replaced the larger Hound Dog missile that could only be carried by the B-52. Boeing won the production contract on 21 November 1966, with Lockheed providing the solid rocket motor. The first powered SRAM flight occurred in July 1969 but the production deliveries didn't start until March 1972. The Air Force removed the SRAMs from inventory in 1993. 07 Dec 1941 (AFLCMC) Carrier-based airplanes launched from a Japanese naval fleet attacked Pearl Harbor and other targets on the Hawaiian island of Oahu, as well as other U.S. and British targets in the Pacific. The “Day That Will Live in Infamy” drew the U.S. into World War Two officially the next day. With war already raging around the globe, America had begun preparations for the likelihood of its entry into the war, including its historic build-up of the U.S. Army Air Forces (changed from “Air Corps” in June 1941) and its supporting contractor base. The roots of almost all of AFLCMC’s bases date to this period and their massive growth came as a result of Pearl Harbor. All of the aircraft used in a significant way during the war were either in design, development, or production by the USAAF acquisition community by the time the bombs fell on Hawaii. 08 Dec 1976 (Fighters & Adv Aircraft/Hill AFB) The first Full-Scale Development (FSD) model General Dynamics (now Lockheed) F-16A flew. The Lightweight Fighter concept was the result of the John Boyd-led “Fighter Mafia” that wanted a stripped-down, simple aircraft optimized for classical turning-based air-to-air combat. The original YF-16 prototype (flown in 1974) embodied this ideal, but the 8 FSD models grew to accommodate an aerial radar, additional weapons stations, and larger wing and control surfaces, which added capability and 25% to the weight. As the cartoon shows, the Fighter Mafia lambasted these changes, but the over 4,500 F-16s built and used around the world attest to its success. 09 Dec 1956 (Mobility & Training Aircraft/Robins) The first production Lockheed C-130A Hercules was delivered to the operational Air Force. Lockheed built the aircraft (following the two prototypes) in the Marietta, Georgia, plant that Bell Aircraft constructed in WWII for B-29 bomber production. Lockheed re-opened the shuttered facility for this program. The C-130 was the first significant new post-war cargo aircraft for the new USAF and its first to use turboprop engines. Sixty-five years after this first delivery, C-130s and its variants are still in use by the Air Force and other nations around the world. 10 Dec 1941 (Tinker AFB) Immediately following the attack on Pearl Harbor and the U.S. entry into World War Two, the War Department’s Office of Production Management announced its plans for American industry to build 1,000 bombers a month and a similar number of other aircraft types. The following day, Congress added $7 million to the $14 million already allotted for construction of the Midwest Air Depot, later dubbed Tinker Field, to help manage that expanded program for the multi-state region. The site, under construction since July, also included a co-located plant for building C-47 cargo planes. 11 Dec 1964 (Mobility & Training Aircraft Dir/Robins AFB) The Air Force released the Request for Proposals for the CX-HLS (Heavy Lift System) strategic airlifter that resulted in the Lockheed C-5 Galaxy. SECAF Eugene Zuckert announced that the program would use the latest in acquisition reform: the Total Package Procurement Concept (TPPC), which mandated a firm fixed-price, incentive fee contract structure in order to increase competition and hold down cost overruns. Neither the contractors nor the Air Force fully understood all the ramifications of this decision, leading to dramatic cost overruns, limited production, and the failure of the TPPC strategy. However, TPPC was the first major acquisition concept to consider systems’ life cycle costs. 12 Dec 1974 (Digital Dir./E-3 AWACS) The Airborne Warning & Control System (AWACS) (designated the E-3A in 1975) System Integration Demonstration (SID) Flight Test pro-gram concluded. The SID program successfully demonstrated single thread integration of the missions avionics subsystems, including data processing, data display, navigation, Identify Friend or Foe, and limited communications with the brass board radar system. This was the middle portion of the 3-Phase AWACS development program. The first SID flight was on 14 March 1974. AFLCMC Installation Spotlight: Wright-Patterson AFB Aside from their being its namesake, Wright-Patterson AFB traces its origins to the Wright Brothers, who made the first controlled, powered flight on 17 December 1903. Back in Dayton, they used Huffman Prairie to the east of town as their first local flying field, where they learned to fly in more than a straight line, then for their flying school, where the likes of Gen. Hap Arnold trained. When the U.S. entered World War I in April 1917, the Army Signal Corps tried to leverage existing facilities like these where possible, in order to expedite training and production, as well as employ the expertise of industrialists like Daytonian Edward Deeds, who became the Equipment Division chief for Signal Corps aeronautics.. He had headed the National Cash Register (NCR) company and now owned several companies (and accompanying land) in the area. Deeds was a friend of Orville Wright, with whom he and others started the Dayton-Wright Airplane Company to build air-craft for the war effort, thought he divested those interests when he became Colonel Deeds of the Signal Corps. Deeds arranged for the Signal Corps to lease the Huffman Prairie area pin 1917 for two facilities. Wilbur Wright Field, named for the brother who died in 1912, was established as a pilot, armorer, and mechanic school. Fairfield Air Depot next to it operated as a supply center. The depot functions continued during the interwar period, but the schools closed. Deeds was more directly responsible for establishing Dayton’s second Air Service facility: McCook Field, just north of downtown Dayton. It was home to the Airplane Engineering Division, the predecessor for AFLCMC and AFRL. It was built on land owned by one of his divested companies. McCook operated 1917-1927, when it moved to larger, permanent facilities next to the Fair-field Depot, dubbed simply “Wright Field” (left). In 1931, the former Air Depot portion was named Patterson Field in honor of Lt Frank S. Patterson (right), son of one of NCR’s founders and whose family was instrumental in securing the land for Wright Field. Frank Patterson was an Air Service pilot who perished during a flight test over the original Wilbur Wright Field area in 1918, when the wing structure on his airplane failed, causing a fatal crash. Wright and Patterson Field were briefly (Dec 1945—Jan 1948) combined as the (Army) Air Force Technical Base before being dubbed Wright-Patterson AFB on 13 January 1948. The former Patterson Field is now Area A and Wright Field is Area B (center), with each still loosely tied to their original missions of logistics management and engineering development/acquisition, respectively. Today, WPAFB is home to the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center’s headquarters and many of its subordinate units, including the 88th Air Base Wing.