This Week In AFLCMC History – October 14 - 20, 2024
14 Oct 1949 (Mobility Directorate)
Seventy-five years ago today, the Chase Aircraft Company’s prototype XC-123 (or “Avitruc”) completed its first flight above Trenton, New Jersey. The XC-123 was essentially a derivative of a World War II “assault glider” with a pair of engines added to it in order to transport troops and supplies to small unprepared fields in forward combat areas. Its 110- foot wingspan was described in papers at the time as being “only 10 feet shorter than the Wright Brothers’ first flight.” Robert W. Wheatley was the pilot for this first flight. The XC-123 developed into the production model Fairchild C-123 Provider, a rugged short-range assault transport that saw heavy use during the Vietnam War.
15 Oct 1954 (Bombers Directorate)
Today in 1954, 70 years ago, the first full wing of Consolidated B-36 Peacemakers—which were then the largest intercontinental bombers in the world—deployed to Andersen Air Force Base on Guam. This was the first time a complete B-36 wing had deployed overseas. The bombers were part of Strategic Air Command’s 92nd Bomb Wing. At the time, Brig Gen Joseph D. Caldera told media outlets that the B-36 “now flying daily over the Western Pacific could take off from Guam, hit every important Russian target, and land in England,” making Guam the chief Soviet target in the Pacific were the Cold War to turn hot. While the B-36 was the primary component of America’s nuclear deterrent force in the early Cold War, no B-36 ever dropped a bomb in combat.
16 Oct 1958 (Armament Directorate)
On this date in 1958, the Air Force awarded North American Aviation the production contract for the GAM-77 (AGM-28) Hound Dog nuclear-armed cruise missile. These supersonic, jet-propelled missiles were designed to be carried singly or in pairs by B-52 bombers on external wing pylons. They were specifically designed in response to a 1956 request for proposals for a stand-off air-to-surface missile that could be fired from a range of about 600 miles primarily to hit fixed surface-to-air missile sites and air bases. This was to allow the B-52s to continue into Soviet airspace unimpeded to strike additional targets. The AGM-28 Hound Dog entered service with the Air Force in Dec 1959, with the last missiles leaving the Air Force’s inventory in 1978 when they were replaced by the Air Launched Cruise Missile (ALCM).
18 Oct 1971 (Tinker AFB)
Today in 1971, 264 feeder calves weighing around 270 pounds each flew out of Tinker AFB on commercial DC-8s under the watchful eyes of base officials, representatives of the South Korean and Japanese embassies, U.S. Senator Henry Bellmon of Oklahoma, and former Arkansas governor Winthrop Rockefeller. The jet-setting cattle were on a trip to South Korea, where Sam Lee, the owner of Daehan Feed Co. in Seoul, had purchased the calves under a cooperative venture proposed by Senator Bellmon about a year prior. The idea was that calves could be sent to South Korea, fattened up there, and then sold to Japan as meat—avoiding a $130 per head tariff that discouraged ranchers from sending cattle directly from the U.S. to Japan. This flight followed an earlier “test run” in January of the same year, flying cattle from Tinker to California, which was known as “Project Bull Shipper”. The operation gave Tinker’s “LogAir” team valuable training and experience.
19 Oct 1991 (Training Directorate)
Today in 1991, the second test T-1A Jayhawk (TT-02) made its first flight. The first test plane had had its first flight earlier in the year, on July 5th. Following successful testing, the first operationally-ready T-1A was delivered to Reese AFB in Texas a few months later in January 1992. This twin-engine, medium-range trainer was designed to be utilized in Specialized Undergraduate Pilot Training (SUPT), and would first see use with student pilots in 1993. SUPT begins with coursework and classroom time before students start primary flying training in the T-6 Texan II. Once they’ve completed flying in the T-6, they are “tracked” into either the fighter/bomber track or the airlift/tanker track. Those who will be going on to fly fighters and bombers then conduct their advanced flying training on the T-38 Talon (soon to be replaced by the T-7 Red Hawk); while those who will be flying airlift, cargo, and tanker missions train on the T-1.
20 Oct 1976 (Fighters & Advanced Aircraft Directorate)
Today in 1976, the General Dynamics plant in Forth Worth, Texas, hosted its rollout for the F-16A, revealing the production model of the new lightweight fighter to the public for the first time. Shortly after, in December 1976, it would have its first flight, nearly 3 years after the YF-16 had flown. The A model was larger, more robust, and more capable than the prototype. Even at rollout, it was clear that the F-16 was going to have a large foreign market. Unlike most US airplanes, the F-16 was actually commissioned by five countries in a coproduction scheme—the United States, of course, played the leading role, but it did so in agreement with four NATO allies: Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands, and Norway. The F-16s produced for this consortium had parts manufactured in each of the five countries, and, at the time, the arrangement was hailed as “the arms deal of the century” by those involved.
75 Years Ago (17 Oct 1949) in AFLCMC History:
The Military Air Transport Service Receives Its First Production C-97A
As the forces of Nazi Germany rolled across Western Europe and Imperial Japan expanded its conquests in Asia and the Pacific in the late 1930s, the United States considered the need to be able to strike these potential enemies across the Atlantic Ocean or vast stretches of the Pacific. To do that, the Army Air Corps contracted with Boeing for a “Very Heavy Bomber” in May 1941, seven months before Pearl Harbor. After significant growing pains, that project resulted in the B-29 Stratofortress, which could reach farther and drop more bombs than any other aircraft of its day.
The B-29’s advanced design, leveraging new technologies like cabin pressurization (demonstrated on Wright Field’s XC-35 in 1937) convinced Boeing that the basic platform could be modified into an equally capable cargo plane that incorporated many of the bombers’ components. In June 1942, three months before the XB-29’s first flight, the company approached Wright Field with this concept, which gave them the go-ahead.
The slender fuselage of the B-29 clearly wasn’t suitable for a heavy airlifter, but Boeing engineers devised a 2-level “inverted figure 8” concept that grafted a larger diameter upper fuselage onto the standard lower one, giving it considerably more interior volume, along with its distinct “pinched” waistline. The two halves were separated inside by a deck, with rear clam-shell doors and loading ramp to the upper space, which totaled over 6000 cubic feet—more than twice any other cargo plane. The wings, engines, tail, landing gear, and many internal components came directly from the B-29.
Dubbed the XC-97 Stratofreighter, the type had its first flight on 9 November 1944 and just three months later flew non-stop across the US in a record six hours. After nine prototypes, the Air Force and Boeing pivoted the design’s baseline platform to the newer B-50—a significantly upgraded version of the B-29 that superficially looked the same, but had 75% new components and 60% more horsepower for greater range, speed, efficiency, and lifting capacity. The first lot of these YC-97As were distributed among Military Air Transport Service (MATS), Strategic Air Command, Air Proving Command, and Air Materiel Command. One of SAC’s was pressed into service in May 1949 during the Berlin Airlift, where it carried a record one million pounds of cargo to the blockaded city in 27 sorties.
The first production model C-97A had its maiden flight on 16 June 1949, with deliveries beginning that Fall. MATS received its first of these on 17 October 1949—75 years ago. They served with distinction during the Korean War, particularly for aeromedical evacuation. Boeing eventually built a total of 888 C-97 variants. Just 77 of these were cargo planes, another 56 were Boeing 377 Stratocruiser airliners, but the vast majority were KC-97 tankers, serving as the mainstay of the Air Force’s aerial refueling fleet until they were supplanted by the KC-135, with the last KC-97s being retired in the 1970s. In 1951, the type was also BIG SAFARI’s first project: PIE FACE, which concealed a massive camera in a C-97A to surreptitiously photograph East Germany.