This Week In AFLCMC History – October 1 - 6, 2024

  • Published
  • By Air Force Life Cycle Management Center History Office
1 Oct 1994 (Wright-Patterson AFB/88th Air Base Wing)
Thirty years ago, Wright-Patterson AFB’s 645th Air Base Wing was redesignated to the current 88th ABW. At the time, Air Force Chief of Staff Gen Merrill McPeak was working to standardize the designations of USAF units, partly to resurrect and preserve the lineage of WWII units. By regulation, units that are stood up or renamed using the numbers of inactive units inherit their new designation’s lineage, honors, and emblem, regardless of mission. Wright-Patt’s ABW’s new namesake was the 88th Bombardment Group, a B-17 Flying Fortress training unit from 1942-1944. However, the ABW also went back to WWII, as the 4000th Army Air Force Base Unit that was stood up in 1944 to support Wright Field, giving it a continuous history that was actually more distinguished than that of the Bomb Group. As a result, ABW leadership successfully lobbied to retain its own lineage and emblem, while taking on the new 88th numerical designation.
 
2 Oct 2006  (Armament Directorate)
Today in 2006, Air Combat Command declared initial operational capability (IOC) for the Guided Bomb Unit- or GBU-39B Small Diameter Bomb. Pictured here striking an A-7
parked beneath a concrete shelter at the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico, the GBU-39 Small Diameter Bomb was then a newly-minted miniaturized guided munition weighing only 250 pounds. First proposed in 1997, with development beginning in 2001, Boeing was selected as the prime contractor for the bomb in 2003. With a standoff range of more than 40 nautical miles, and a cost of about $40,000 per bomb, this all-weather munition saw its first use only three days after achieving IOC, when it was utilized in Southwest Asia by the 494th Expeditionary Fighter Squadron on 5 Oct 2006. Initially, the F-15E Strike Eagle was the only aircraft outfitted to use the GBU-39B SDB, but since then additional airframes have gained the capability. The system can be targeted and released against single or multiple targets, allowing for multiple kills per sortie.
 
3 Oct 2004 (Mobility Directorate)
Twenty years ago today, the Lockheed-Martin plant at Marietta, Georgia, received its first C-5 for modification under the “Reliability Enhancement and Re-engining Program” (RERP), meant to extend the life of the C-5 system up through 2040. Incorporating more than 70 improvements, the C-5 RERP was the second phase of a two-phase modernization program for the C-5 Galaxy (with the first phase being an Avionics Modernization Program). Among the upgrades were new GE CF6-80C2-L1F (F-138) engines that increased thrust by 22 percent, allowed for 30 percent shorter take-offs, and 58 percent faster climbs. Once a C-5 completed both phases of the modernization
program, it became a “C-5M Super Galaxy.”
 
4 Oct 1979 (Hanscom AFB/Presidential & Executive Airpower Directorate)
Forty-five years ago today, the E-4B began post-refurbishment ground tests at the Boeing Company’s Seattle, Washington, location. The E-4B is a militarized version of the Boeing 747-200 that serves as the National Airborne Operations Center, providing a survivable command post to senior government officials, such as the President, in times of national emergency. It is capable of remaining aloft for long-range using aerial refueling. The program originated in the early 1970s at Hanscom AFB’s Electronic Systems Division (ESD) and first produced E-4As, with the first more advanced –B model being delivered to Air Force Systems Command in December 1979. Following hot weather testing in Panama, it was turned over to the Strategic Air Command (SAC) at Offutt AFB, Nebraska, for operational use in Jan 1980. ESD again managed the retrofit and conversion of the E-4A fleet to -Bs by 1985.
 
5 Oct 1991 (Cold War History)
In Jul 1991, Presidents George H. W. Bush and Mikhail Gorbachev signed the “Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty of 1991” (START), as they are pictured doing here, agreeing to limit the number of ICBMs and nuclear warheads each country would possess. A couple of months later, President Bush began a unilateral nuclear drawdown, eliminating or limiting a range of tactical nuclear weapons from the U.S.’s land, sea, and air forces. On 5 Oct 1991, President Gorbachev not only matched this decision, but raised the “bidding” with even steeper cuts to the Soviet arsenal. The trend continued even after the collapse of the Soviet Union a short while later, with the new Russian President Boris Yeltsin reaffirming and expanding on Gorbachev’s promises. In 1947, the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists started the “Doomsday Clock”—a metaphor for “how far from midnight” (that is, a global manmade catastrophe, like all-out nuclear war) the world was at in any given year. These months in the latter half of 1991 represented the “furthest from midnight” humanity had ever been since the start of the 1947 Doomsday Clock, with the world at that point being “17 minutes from midnight.” Worryingly, the “closest to midnight” the world has been since 1947 was in 2023 and 2024. Per this nonprofit, we are currently “ninety seconds to midnight.”
 
6 Oct 1936 (Hill AFB)
On this date in 1936, the Ogden Chamber of Commerce and the Weber Club deeded 160 acres of Davis County, Utah, land to the US Government—an important, concrete step towards establishing what would become Hill Air Force Base. The base’s origins traced back to a 1934 Air Corps Materiel Division (now AFMC) recommendation that the “Rocky Mountain Air Depot” be built in northern Utah, with the 1935 Wilcox Act authorizing site selection. The city of Ogden’s Chamber of Commerce sought to entice the Army to build there by securing options on 4,265.42 acres of land, and then making this initial 160-acre donation. It worked. By spring of 1939, the government had nearly 3,000 acres of land held in escrow by the Chamber, with a plan to build an “Ogden Air Depot”—which would be positioned on “Hill Field,” so-named in Dec 1939 for Maj Ployer P. Hill, a Wright Field test pilot who lost his life testing a B-17 prototype at present-day Wright-Patterson AFB. Groundbreaking on the construction of Hill Field occurred on 12 Jan 1940.
 
 
100 Years Ago in AFLCMC History
 
In the early twentieth century, air races provided critical publicity for the still-new field of aviation, prize money that fund-ed early pioneers, and experience for both pilots and designers. After World War I, the races became the impetus and proving ground for new technologies. By 1924, the International Air Races were the pinnacle of the sport. Dayton industrialist Frederick Patterson headed the organization that ran them and successfully lobbied to have his hometown host the event that Fall at the Army Air Service’s Wilbur Wright Field (WPAFB Area A).
 
Dayton’s civic and business leaders spent months preparing and promoting the Air Races, while the Air Service’s local commanders—Maj Augustine Warner Robins of Wilbur Wright Field and the adjacent Fairfield Air Depot and Maj John Curry of the nearby (AFLCMC predecessor) Engineering Division at McCook Field—readied their facilities and prepped Air Service pilots and planes to compete in the events. During one September practice session, McCook’s Lt Alexander Pearson died when his plane snapped a wing and crashed.
 
From October 2-4, 1924, there were a dozen races for aircraft large and small, open to military and civilian pilots. Most of the approximately 170 entrants were American and three-quarters were from the Air Service. An estimated 80,000 to 100,000 people showed up to watch, including Air Service Chief Gen Mason Patrick (his sister lived in Dayton) and his deputy, Brig Gen Billy Mitchell.
 
The first two days of the races concluded with great success, but the final day turned to tragedy during the ultimate event: the Pulitzer Race, where the fastest airplanes competed—and the one for which Lt Pearson was preparing when he perished in September. In the staggered “flying start” of the race, Army Capt Burt Skeel of Selfridge Field, Michigan, was the last of the four competitors to take off. An estimated 50,000 people, including Skeel’s wife, watched as he dove towards them from far across the field to reach the starting pylon at maximum speed in his Curtiss R-6. To their horror, a wing buckled, plunging the airplane into the wooded area near the Mad River, throwing up a visible plume of debris. The other three competitors remained oblivious to the accident and finished out the race. Emergency crews rushed to the crash site, only to find a deep, water-filled crater where the airplane had buried itself in the muck. It took the better part of the night to locate Skeel’s body, which was also submerged.
 
Despite Pearson’s and Skeel’s deaths (such accidents were common), the 1924 races were a huge success—though some locals grumbled that not as many visitors with open wallets had shown up as expected. The legacy of the Races can be found in Wright-Patt Area A’s Pearson Road and Skeel Avenue.