This week in AFLCMC history - March 28 - April 1, 2022 Published March 28, 2022 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. 28 Mar 1963 (Armament Directorate) Production of the GAM-77 (AGM-28) Hound Dog missile was completed. North American Aviation manufactured 722 of them between 1959-1963. In 1956, the Air Force released a requirement for a long-range, anti-air-defense, nuclear-armed cruise missile to be launched by B-52s to clear the way for the bombers to penetrate enemy airspace. North American based its design on its defunct Navaho ground-launched cruise missile, except using a version of the Pratt & Whitney J58 turbojet engine designed to run continuously at maximum power for up to 6 hours, 800 miles, and a top speed of Mach 2.1. Hound Dogs were removed from service in 1975. (See photo above). 29 Mar 1923 (WPAFB) Army Air Service pilot Lt Russell Maughan, a veteran test pilot and racer at McCook Field, set a world speed record of 236.587mph at Wilbur Wright Field, Dayton, Ohio (now WPAFB Area A). This was a deliberate attempt to reclaim the record from the French who had set a mark of 233mph just a month earlier. Maughan flew a specially-built Curtiss R-6, which was already a record-setter. His compatriot Lt Lester Maitland, flying the other R-6 that same day, hit an unofficial 281mph in a dive—believed to be the fastest recorded speed ever flown (and survived) by a human at that time. In 1924, Maughan’s R-6 was destroyed in a crash that killed pilot Capt Burt Skeel, for whom WPAFB’s Skeel Avenue is named. 30 Mar 1979 (Digital Dir.—Hanscom AFB) The government accepted the first six production Strategic Air Command Automated Command and Control System (SACCS) Replacement Keyboards (SRKs). Managed by the Electronic Systems Division (ESD) at Hanscom AFB, SRK consisted of a keyboard, visual display unit, hardware interfaces, accessories, and an installation kit. SAC sought ESD’s help in procuring new “keyboards” and printers for both its “soft” and nuclear-hardened networks, as part of a larger effort to modernize its command and control equipment. IBM was the primary contractor. These first 6 SRKs were delivered to Keesler AFB and Offut AFB. Eventually 150 were made. 31 Mar 1978 (Digital Dir.—Hanscom/Tinker) Representatives for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Defense Planning Committee signed a Statement of Understanding (SOU) to expend $1.9 million for initial development of a standardized configuration for US and NATO E-3A Airborne Warning and Control Systems (AWACS) aircraft. NATO approved the purchase of 18 AWACS that December, though the Acquisition Agreement was not signed until April 1979. Program management was handled jointly between the AWACS program office at Hanscom and the NATO AEW [Airborne Early Warning] Program Management Agency (NAPMA). The changes proposed for the newer NATO E-3s would be incorporated into the fleet of 34 US AWACS, both to increase capability and assure standardization. 02 Apr 1951 (AFLCMC) The Air Force announced the establishment of the Air Research and Development Command (ARDC) as a major command, headed by Maj Gen David M. Schlatter and derived from Air Materiel Command (AMC). ARDC headquarters moved from Wright Field to Baltimore, Maryland, and concurrently HQ USAF established the Air Development Force at WPAFB. ARDC lasted exactly a decade until it merged into Air Force Systems Command (AFSC) in 1961. As part of ARDC, the Wright Air Development Center (WADC) was formed at Wright-Patterson AFB. WADC conglomerated four elements extracted from Air Material Command: Engineering, flight test, all-weather flying, and air research. WADC was reorganized and renamed the Wright Air Development Division (WADD) in 1959 until it became the Aeronautical Systems Division under AFSC two years later. 03 Apr 1919 (AFLCMC) Lt Col Frederick T. Dickman and Maj John Butts, the commander and exec, respectively, of the US Army Air Service’s Souther Field, GA, were killed when their plane crashed. As Butts turned in to land, a strong wind gust flipped the tail up and forced the plane into an unrecoverable spin at just 100 feet of altitude. Dickman had commanded AFLCMC-predecessor McCook Field, Dayton, Ohio, in Jan-Feb 1918. His father was Dayton native Maj Gen Joseph T. Dickman, famous for commanding the Army’s 3rd Infantry Division during WWI that earned the nickname “Rock of the Marne.” Frederick’s son, Joseph L. Dickman, became a WWII fighter pilot and rose to the rank of Major General (like his grandfather) in the US Air Force, serving primarily in continental air defense. All three men graduated from West Point. This Week in AFLCMC History Highlight: 01 April 1961 Air Force Systems Command and Air Force Logistics Command replaced Air Research and Development Command and Air Materiel Command, in a major reorganization of the Air Force acquisition structure. The driver for this was Gen Bernard A. “Bennie” Schriever. He joined the Army in 1932 and became a bomber pilot. He earned a reputation for having a brilliant technical mind and a wicked golf game, both of which earned him entrée into the inner circles of Air Corps leadership (as did marrying a general’s daughter). He served a stint as a Wright Field Test pilot/engineer and attended the predecessor for AFIT. During World War II, he flew bomber missions in the Pacific Theater before serving out the war as a staff officer. After WWII, Schriever became a strong advocate for science and technology development within the Air Force, introducing both formal Development Planning and Systems Engineering functions. He was also part of the group that successfully advocated for an independent Air Research and Development Command (ARDC) in 1951. The aircraft R&D organization at Wright Field became the Wright Air Development Center (WADC) under ARDC. WADC inherited acquisition processes from the 1940s that left most engineering up to the contractors and focused on sustainment rather than development. New technologies like computers and electronics, new organizational constructs like Weapons System Project Offices (WSPOs) and “matrix” engineering, and novel acquisition ideas like concurrency, where R&D and production preparations occurred simultaneously, stressed WADC and led to failures to develop long-range cruise missiles like Snark and Navaho. As a result, ARDC established a new organization to manage development of Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs): the Western Development Division with Schriever in charge. There, he implemented all of these new techniques, along with the use of a single contractor for dedicated engineering support, to produce the first US ICBMs in a short amount of time, though at very high cost. This visible success convinced Schriever that the entire USAF acquisition system should likewise be reformed and persuaded his bosses that he was the man to do it. In 1959, he was made ARDC commander and immediately began preparations to entirely remake ARDC and Air Materiel Command (AMC). Schriever got his wish under the new Kennedy administration in 1961. He became the first leader of Air Force Systems Command (AFSC) that combined ARDC’s R&D mission with AMC’s procurement and production functions. A new Air Force Logistics Command retained AMC’s supply and maintenance missions. That overall structure persisted until 1992 when the commands were once again merged, as they had been in the 1940s, into a new, singular Air Force Materiel Command. As part of AFSC, the former WADC (briefly renamed Wright Air Development Division) became the Aeronautical Systems Division (ASD) at WPAFB, responsible for missiles (excluding ICBMs), aircraft, space, and avionics equipment (see next page). The Electronic Systems Division (ESD) was activated at Hanscom Field out of the former Air Force Command and Control Development Division and Electronic Systems Center to handle ground electronics, radar, and similar systems.