This week in AFLCMC history and spotlight on the Center 100 years ago
In this edition of Heritage Hangar, you'll learn about old and new airplanes and tidbits of what happened this week many years ago.
13 Dec 1958 (SOF/Personnel Recovery & Rotary Div)
The first flight of the Kaman K-600-3, the prototype for the Air Force’s HH- 43B Huskie helicopter. It was designed by one of the German engineers brought to the US under Project Paperclip after WWII. Variants of this helicopter were used by the Navy, Marines, and Air Force primarily for personnel search & rescue in Vietnam, as well as firefighting and base-rescue du-ties around the world. Its unique twin main rotors were synchronized and enmeshed, which enabled it to dispense with a tail rotor and gave it excel-lent hovering characteristics. The Air Force’s version, coming after the other services, used a turboshaft engine in place of the original rotary piston engine.
14 Dec 1979 (Digital Directorate)
Low-power radio frequency (RF) transmission of the Continental US (CONUS) Over-the-Horizon Backscatter (OTH-B) Experimental Radar System (ERS) commenced. Like all radars, strategic warning radar systems were limited in their range for detecting incoming aircraft and ICBMs by line-of-site (LOS). However, Air Force scientists had noted that some RF waves would reflect off the atmosphere, down beyond the horizon, and back, overcoming the LOS limitation. After much R&D by the Air Force at its Hanscom, Rome, and Cambridge facilities, the OTH-B system had progressed to the Developmental Testing and Evaluation stage by 1979, for which the ERS was “to address the technical feasibility objective.” It also explored any possible environmental and personnel effects. The photo shows the transmit facility near Moscow, Maine.
15 Dec 1964 (ISR & SOF Directorate/WPAFB)
The Air Force conducted its first fixed-wing gunship mission in Vietnam. The idea of using a cargo plane as an aerial gunship was developed by the Aeronautical Systems Division at Wright-Patt, as “Project Gunship.” They partnered with the AF Avionics Lab and Aero-space Medical Research Lab to demonstrate that a pilot could maintain accurate fire on a fixed point on the ground using side-firing ma-chine guns. That team (photo) modified in-house a C-47 with .30 caliber machine guns initially, then with 7.62mm Gatling-type miniguns. The first AC-47 deployed to Vietnam for testing in early December and proved so successful that C-130s and C-119 were also modified, and the concept is still in use today.
16 Dec 1996 (Bombers Directorate)
Air Combat Command Commander Gen Richard E. Hawley announced that the B-2 Spirit had reached Limited Initial Operational Capability. This recognized the readiness of the Block 20 aircraft to perform its conventional bombing mission. The B-2 came out of the Advanced Technology Bomber program of the late 1970s. It was the strategic nuclear bomber counterpart of the F-117 attack air-craft that both leveraged the revolution in low observable technology. Following the fall of the Soviet Union, the Air Force added conventional bombing capabilities to the B-2.
17 Dec 1965 (Big Safari)
The C-97G that had been part of the Big Safari SPEED LIGHT CO-CO project crashed at Carswell AFB, Texas. Like its predecessor, SPEED LIGHT ALPHA, this C-97G was modified in a matter of days in 1961 to monitor and record Cuban television broadcasts, particularly speeches by dictator Fidel Castro. The COCO plane improved on its predecessor with the installation of two television sets, updated recording equipment, and additional crew comfort accommodations. The plane served its role for “many months” before being returned to the Special Projects Office in Ft. Worth as a permanent test aircraft. It was transporting passengers when it skidded off an icy runway and burst into flames. All 20 passengers escaped serious injury.
18 Dec 1981 (Tinker AFB/Bombers Dir.)
The Oklahoma City Air Logistics Center at Tinker awarded the largest contract in the depot’s history: $640 million to Boeing for the B-52 Offensive Avionics System/Cruise Missile Integration (OAS/CMI) modification and enhancement. The money provided for a 168 B-52H and G models to be refitted with the avionics and mechanical systems necessary for carrying the new Air Launched Cruise Missile (ALCM, developed in part, then managed at WPAFB), with 100 of those to be modified at Tinker itself. The photo shows the team readying the “kit proof” for the modification.
19 Dec 1918 (AFLCMC/WPAFB)
The Army Signal Corps Air Service Bureau of Aircraft Production (BAP) announced it would be immediately vacating the offices it had occupied in the Dayton Savings & Trust building. (the tall building in the photo) In its rush to get its WWI acquisition program up and running, the BAP commandeered three different buildings in downtown Dayton, with this being the last. They dubbed it the “Air Building” because the Air Service occupied most of its floors for offices, drafting rooms, and even some laboratories. It complemented nearby McCook Field, which had little administrative space.
100 Years Ago This Week in AFLCMC History: 13 December 1921
McCook Field Engineering Division test pilot Muir S. Fairchild was putting the first production model GA-1 ground attack plane (the gunship of its day) through its 10-hour acceptance flight tests in December 1921.
During World War I, the Germans developed a “trench fighter” airplane, with armor and downward-pointing guns to strafe enemy troops. General Billy Mitchell had seen first-hand the many types of German aircraft like these for which the US had no equivalent. In his post-war position as an assistant chief of the Air Service, Mitchell directed the Engineering Division to rectify these discrepancies.
In early 1919, McCook Commander Col Thurman Bane as-signed the project to Isaac “Mac” Laddon (right), his head of large aircraft design in one of their three in-house design shops. Laddon’s team drew up the plans, drafted drawings, and con-ducted stress analysis for the GAX—Ground Attack Experimental (top left). It was a triplane equipped with two Liberty V-12 engines, pusher (rear-mounted) propellers, eight .30 caliber Lewis machine guns, and a 37mm cannon (top right). Heavily armored, the plane weighed over 10,000 pounds when loaded. The McCook Field shops built the lone GAX as the equivalent of a modern “Y” demonstration prototype before production, for $72,000.
The GAX’s flight tests proved it to be dangerously underpowered, with a 105mph top speed and a rate-of-climb so poor that pilots almost never took it above 500 feet. It vibrated so much that the noise prevented the crew from communicated and caused the engines to fall apart. To his credit, Mac Laddon often rode along during the flight tests. Nevertheless, Mitchell called it “a great advance in aviation” and insisted it go out to bid
The contractors recognized the plane’s shortcomings and it was only the desperate status of the post-war industry that brought in bidders. Boeing “won” the contract for 20 GA-1s in 1920, though, in a moment of clarity, the Air Service cut the order to 10. They cost $46,000 each and the first one flew in May 1921. These production models went to Kelly Field, Texas, where they were used sparingly. Jimmy Doolittle later commented that assignment to the GA-1 was reserved as punishment for wayward pilots.
After the GAX/GA-1, Laddon produced several other ungainly aircraft at McCook Field before becoming the chief designer for Consolidated Aircraft. There, he was responsible for the PBY Catalina, the B-24 Liberator, and the massive B-36 Peacekeeper.