A little something for you Tanker Drivers.
I don't remember ever seeing one
either. And to go along with this as a good S/O I still have some caution
light lenses from the 727 cockpit that Capt Chad gave me during several
different preflights to "put in my pocket and keep until he said he needed
them." "Yes Sir"!
David W. Skjerven
Subject: [905thARS] 905th ARS Tanker Tales (Part 12: Something's Missing &
What Silos?))
Something’s Missing
Whether a crewmember was assigned to a KC-135 for only a few years or for several decades, there is a “feature” of the cockpit that most of us have never seen. After several thousand hours in the airplane, I never saw one. I’ve looked through historical photos of the early years of the Stratotanker and have noticed it only once or twice. Otherwise the feature is missing. Look carefully at the old KC-135A cockpit photo below. While it has the distinctive red-guarded switches at the base of the co-pilots instrument panel – the switches that activated the water injection system that won the aircraft nicknames such as “Steam Jet” or “Water Wagon” – the other feature is missing.
Photo
courtesy of the Castle Air Museum: KC-135A serial number 55-3139, the 22nd
aircraft produced.
I happened to come across one of them in the late 1980s while assigned to Loring AFB and serving as the project officer for the transition from the KC-135A to the KC-135R. There was some work with a few Boeing representatives, and one of them gave me the memento in the photo below. Although I could not remember ever seeing one, I immediately recognized it for what it was and expressed my astonishment that the items still existed. By the late 1960s, most of them had gone the way of crewmember souvenirs that were never seen again in public. All I can remember were the metal-spoked spinners on the yoke hub. The company had the new covers with “KC-135R” manufactured as commemorative mementoes for some of the individuals working with the A-to-R changeover program. (They knew better than to put them on the airplanes.)
KC-135R
yoke hub cover made of Lucite
A
copy of the original KC-135 yoke hub (no model designator).
Does anyone remember ever seeing one of these rare items in the airplane?
What Silos?
At a somewhat-isolated base like Grand Forks, most of the distinguished visitors seemed to be senior members of the staffs at Headquarters SAC or Headquarters 8th Air Force. Every now and then a visitor of non-military significance would drop by. Such was the case when Representative Mark Andrews of North Dakota (who served from 1963-1980) made a presentation at a luncheon at the Officers’ Club in the mid-70s.
Representative Andrews first made the point of joking about his political pull. Based upon the sparse population of the state, he was the state’s sole representative. Therefore, he said he represented the entire state. That gave him more pull than the senators since there were two of them, and some people might claim they had to “share” the state.
North Dakota grew a phenomenal percentage of several U.S. crops, so it was only natural that Representative Andrews was on an agricultural committee in Congress. In that capacity, he had been part of a delegation that visited Russia to explore the options for improving relations between the two superpowers through agricultural trading, especially some of the state’s wheat and flax. The delegation flew to Russia in an Air Force aircraft equipped with a full communication suite to talk to just about anyone in the world.
Since the flight afforded some unusual down time from his normal schedule, at some point over Russia, Representative Andrews decided to call his brother and talk about a few of the issues they were dealing with on their family farm in the Red River Valley. A communications NCO briefed him on how to use the telephone, advising him that both callers would need to say “over” at the end of each segment of conversation to avoid speaking at the same time and garbling the transmissions. The NCO also advised that he would be monitoring the transmissions to make sure the channels were clear, and to fine tune the frequency as necessary.
There was some novelty with the idea of making a phone call from an airplane, but after the introductions, the conversation settled in on the usual topics of farm management.
“How’s the family, over?” A short conversation followed.
“How’s the new tractor, over?” A short conversation followed.
“How are the crops this year, over?” A short conversation followed.
Then they had a long discussion about the two grain silos on the farm. They were in the process of having new metal roofs put on the silos, so the brothers talked about the progress of the work, the quality of the work, how long the new roofs could be expected to last, the cost, and several other aspects of the project. When they were finished, they signed off and closed out the call.
A few minutes after the call was complete, the NCO approached Representative Andrews. The NCO reiterated that he had been monitoring the call just as he had said he would. Then he said “Sir, I know you were talking only about your family farm. However, the combined resources of Grand Forks AFB and Minot AFB make North Dakota the state with the largest collection of missile silos in the U.S. You are the lone representative of the state, and the Soviets were surely listening to the conversation. Can you imagine what kind of coded message they must think you were sending to your brother about doing some sort of upgrade to the “missile” silos in the state?”
The representative said he had never thought about that, and he and the NCO had a good laugh at the idea of the Soviet code-breakers and linguists spending hours and hours trying to determine the hidden message behind the call about the grain silos.
Minuteman
Missile Silo
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