This Week In AFLCMC History: March 6 - 12, 2023

  • Published
  • By Air Force Life Cycle Management Center History Office
6 Mar 1953 (Mobility & Training Aircraft Dir.)

70 years ago, Boeing delivered its last piston-engine bomber, a TB-50H, to the Air Force. The TB-50 was a B-50 Superfortress (developed from the B-29) that had been converted into a training aircraft (photo is a TB-50D). The TB-50 had 2 astrodomes instead of one, to allow crew to switch positions during flights (in order to enhance their training), and it carried no defensive weapons. It also could not be aerially refueled. TB-50s were largely used to train B-47 crews on K-system radar navigation and bombing, and to train others in specialized roles. It normally carried a crew of 12 Airmen on its training missions. The TB-50s were phased out of training in 1955 and converted into KB-50Ks. 

7 Mar 2011 (Tinker AFB)

Tinker Gate (Gate #1) was reopened for traffic on this date after a $6.7 million construction project. The project, which was undertaken to bring the entry point into compliance with anti-terrorism security requirements, included a new visitors center, gate houses, serpentine lanes, and pop-up barriers. The latter two features were designed to prevent gate-runners from bypassing the gate stop to get onto base, and to prevent bad actors from using vehicles as weapons. With a total of six lanes, Tinker Gate is considered the busiest gate, and was closed for 10 months during the construction efforts. 

8 Mar 1946 (Fighters & Advanced Aircraft Dir.—Hill AFB) 

The first P-80A Lockheed Shooting Star jet arrived at Hill Field. Development on the P-80 began in 1943, with the XP-80 making its first flight on 8 Jan 1944. It was designed to counter the Nazis’ Messerschmitt Me 262, the world’s first jet-powered fighter, but World War II ended before the P- 80 saw actual combat. Nonetheless, it was the first Ameri-can-made jet airplane produced in quantity, and it was flown in the Korean War. The “P” in P-80 stood for “Pursuit”—it was renamed the F-80 (“F” for “Fighter”) in 1948, and the first all-jet fighter air battle was between an F-80C and a Russian-built MiG-15 on 8 Nov 1950. 

9 Mar 1938 (WPAFB) 

85 years ago, Lt Benjamin S. Kelsey was presented the Distinguished Flying Cross by Brig Gen A. W. Robins for safely landing an airplane at Wright Field after it caught fire mid-air. From the award write-up: “On December 24, 1936, at about 7:30 p.m., Lieutenant Kelsey was piloting an [B-10] air-plane from Mitchel Field, Long Island, New York, to Wright Field, Dayton, Ohio, flying at an altitude of approximately 1,800 feet when the left motor instantaneously failed and the left wing burst into flames. By his outstanding courage, sound judgment, and at the risk of his life Lieu-tenant Kelsey maintained control of the airplane and, with great difficulty due to the darkness of the night and the glare from the burning airplane, effected a safe landing at Wright Field, thereby preventing the destruction to valuable Government property.” 

10 Mar 1959 (AFLCMC) 

The X-15A-1 research plane completed its first flight after being carried aloft on the wing of a B-52. Like other rocket planes, it did not take off from the ground, but was released while airborne. The X-15 bridged the gap between atmospheric and space flight, as the first piloted aircraft capable of reaching hypersonic speeds. Three X-15s were made in total. The X-15A-1 is at the National Air and Space Museum. The X-15A-2 was the fastest version, reaching a maximum speed of Mach 6.7 in 1967 and can be seen at the National Museum of the USAF. The third X-15 crashed, killing its pilot, Maj Michael Adams (USAF). The X-15 provided data on hypersonic propulsion, materials, aerodynamics, and more, that continues to be relevant today. It was managed by AFLCMC’s predecessor, the Wright Air Development Center. 

11 Mar 2003 (Armament Dir.—Eglin AFB) 

Twenty years ago today, Eglin AFB first exploded the Massive Ordinance Air Blast (MOAB) bomb, the world’s largest conventional (i.e., non-nuclear) bomb, on the base’s western range. The media picked up the story, and it was soon known by its nickname, the “Mother Of All Bombs.” The MOAB weapon is a precision, GPS-guided bomb weighing around 21,500 pounds that is so big that it has to be carried on a C-130 cargo aircraft instead of a conventional bomber. Reports from the test indicated that the mushroom cloud could be seen 20 miles away. Originally developed for the war in Iraq, it didn’t actually see any operational use until 2017. 

12 Mar 1967 (Fighters & Advanced Aircraft Dir.) 

The F-4 Phantom II program reached a milestone on this date when the 2,000th F-4 aircraft, an F-4D fighter version (S/N 66-7533), was delivered to the Air Force. Ultimately, over 5,000 F-4s would be produced, with more than 2,600 of those going to the Air Force. Production of the aircraft end-ed in 1979, and the F-4 was retired from combat operations in the U.S. in 1996. The F-4D had a larger radar in its nose (the APQ-109A radar, inset), enhancing its capabilities, as well as improved weapons delivery systems. In total, 825 of the F-4s built were the F-4D version.

AFLCMC Women’s History Month Highlight: World War I

While “Rosie the Riveter” is an icon of World War II and in American women’s history, the opportunities she represented were first made more than two decades earlier—including in aircraft production and acquisition. 

The US’s April 1917 entry into World War I led to a massive expansion of US aircraft production, which generated a significant need for workers, from the office to the drafting room to the production floor. The new Dayton-Wright Airplane Company, which built over 3,100 DH-4s (the only American WWI aircraft to see combat in Europe), was no exception. Its owners discovered that other plants were already using women to a growing degree, with one superintendent commenting that “with their light touch and careful manipulation of sensitive machines, women are admirably adapted to much of the light ma-chine work done on airplanes.” As a result, Dayton-Wright, and many others, employed female workers in unprecedented numbers. However, the effects of those in-roads were limited due to the relatively short duration of the war and the deliberate roll-back of enabling wartime employment measures. They did, however, establish precedents and processes that were leveraged in the 1940s. 

That industrial expansion was accompanied by the commensurate growth of government agencies to manage it. Since the conversion of the US Civil Service in the 1880s to a professional, merit-based institution, its ranks were open to women, who comprised more than 10% of government employees in the 1910s. However, they were still barred from taking more than half the civil service exams, which limited their options to mostly traditional categories, such as clerical work. 

Dayton became an epicenter of aircraft acquisition during WWI due to the location of the Army Air Ser-vice’s Production Engineering Department in several downtown office buildings. Across the river lay the new McCook Field, home of the complementary Aircraft Engineering Department that did development and testing. Combined, these were AFLCMC’s predecessors. 

The Army signed a lease for McCook Field in October 1917 and construction began that same month. McCook Field’s first civilian employee was 19-year-old Hester Winget. With just a 6th-grade education, she was sent to the partially-completed Administration Building as a telephone operator (notably, similar women were sent to France under a quasi-military program to run phones and switchboards in combat zones and were dubbed the “Hello Girls”). Miss Winget stayed on for several years, becoming well-known for working the Field’s visitor information desk, playing the piano exceptionally well, and excelling at golf. She knew all the leaders and pilots from Billy Mitchell to Jimmy Doolittle, as well as the heads of the aircraft companies, including Igor Sikorsky, Anthony Fokker, Chance Vought, Larry Bell, Glenn Martin, and Bill Boeing. While the exact proportion of women who served at McCook is not documented, a rough estimate is in line with the government averages of about 10%.