"My 38,000 Pound Hot Date"
"My 38,000 Pound Hot Date"
(Or....."Think twice before you jilt a lover
who packs 25 thousand pounds of thrust!")
It's June already, a couple weeks shy of my 58th birthday, and very shortly we at the California State Treasury will be immensely preoccupied with our part in processing Governor Ahnuld's second 'Economic Recovery Bond' (11.1 billion dollars). Yesterday was Memorial Day, by traditional conventions a day of remembrance of those who gave what is usually considered 'the ultimate sacrifice' for our nation.
This year, I and a few close friends marked
the occasion by attending the Castle Aviation Museum's 'Open Day', which was
great not least because I sort of had a hot date arranged with a 38,000 pound former lover
there, one might say. Castle Air Force Base (for that is what this historic base
was called before it was closed in the late 90s) was for decades one of the most
important Strategic Air Command bases in the entire continental United
States. With an absolutely mammoth ribbon of reinforced concrete runway
capable of landing the heaviest war-loaded intercontinental bombers (12,000 x
300 feet, Runway 31), Castle
vigilantly maintained a 24 hour nuclear bomber alert that could launch and disperse 8
nuclear weapons laden B-52s within minutes of receiving a NORAD 'Red Alert' (the
highest level of threat under the North American Air Defense Command's
conditions). Castle regrettably was selected for base closure in the past
decade, but it was fortunate to have a dedicated host of aviation history buffs
and enthusiasts in the surrounding area to enable its aviation museum to become fully independent and
help make the difficult (but successful) transition to a privately funded historical
foundation. As a result, the interesting and very valuable collection of
historical military aircraft in the Castle collection was saved from an
uncertain 
fate
and although funding any museum is a financial ordeal in these uncertain
economic times, the Castle Aviation Museum Foundation is today regarded as
having one
of the State of California's best historical aircraft collections.
In its collection of aircraft that includes the most well known of America's multiengine bomber aircraft, both old and new, there are some real jewels to be seen there; anyone who is interested in the rapid progress made by aviation technology over the 10 decades since the Wrights flew the first controlled powered flight in 1903 will find the Castle collection fascinating. The Castle inventory includes a rare Consolidated B-36 Peacemaker, the early swept-wing B-47 Stratojet, a Boeing B-52G Stratofortress, a delta-winged Avro Vulcan B.2 (one of the RAF's 3 famous strategic jet "V" bombers of the 60s), an ultra-rare North American B-45A Tornado (the nation's first jet bomber), a Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress, a Consolidated B-24 Liberator, a North American B-25 Mitchell, A Douglas B-18 Bolo (military variant of the famed DC series civilian liners), and many other equally historic and important military aircraft designs.
Of course for me, the star of their collection
is their most recent acquisition, a Convair F-106A Delta Dart (known to the
F-106 faithful simply as a 'Six'). I won't bother to recite much of the
history of this particular aircraft (serial number 58-0793),
since that information is available elsewhere (not least of all in the Castle
Aviation Museum website itself, that is found at http://www.elite.net/castle-air/
), but I will make note of the fact that this beautiful bird is a surviving
member of our 5th Fighter Interceptor Squadron's inventory
of Sixes.
In fact, of the relatively few Sixes that survived the Tyndall AFB target drone
program ("Pacer Six", a program that converted the retired fleet of
F-106 aircraft into remotely flown 
'QF-106'
target drones), most were ex-5th FIS birds, amazingly enough. The Six at Castle
has been given a different squadron color scheme and a spurious tail-number to
reflect the Castle based 456th Fighter Interceptor Squadron CO's aircraft, but
that's fine; a few of us are content to know that it is originally one of the 5th FIS Sixes that
were so well known to those of us who served at Minot AFB in the 60s and 70s;
and therein hangs a tale. Of the roughly 282 Convair F-106s produced, this
aircraft is number 155. A single seater "A" model (the two seat
"B" model was used for training and proficiency) that flew with
7 different Six squadrons and 2 Air National Guard squadrons during its three
decades of dedicated air defense duty, this unique
bird survived the "Pacer Six" turkey shoot and was finally retired to
the Air Force's AMARC (Aircraft Maintenance and Regeneration Center) in Arizona; along with
a pathetic handful of its fellow survivors left to bake silently in the hot Arizona sun,
it patiently awaited whatever destiny the future offered. All too often, that "uncertain future" took the form of being ground up as
reclaimed aluminum scrap metal for soda cans! Fortunately for us and the
aviation public, 58-0793 was spared that rather
inglorious fate.
In 2003 SN 58-0703 was rescued from
uncertainty by the former 456th FIS Six crews and friends of the Castle Air Museum, to be
added to the Castle collection. Subsequent to an arduous and costly effort to
retrieve it (estimated at about $30,000), the plane finally
sits today in a pristine state of display on the Castle museum grounds. The
picture taken of me on the crew ladder at the top of this page manages to convey a small bit
of the magnificent state of restoration that this plane enjoys. The gear I am
wearing in the picture, incidentally, is authentic mid-60s Air Defense Command aircrew life
support equipment unique to the ADC Six crews that includes an HGU-2/P helmet, 
MBU-5/P
pressure demand oxygen mask, Indian Orange K-2B cotton flight suit, BA-24 pyrotechnically
deployed 28 foot C-9 canopied parachute (used with the Six's Weber rocket
ejection seat system, pictured at right), and LPU-2/P underarm PFD. I should explain that a few of my
friends and I who are presently aviation historians in life support and egress
areas of aviation technology sometimes provide 'living history' information at
airshows and open days by demonstrating period flightgear that was typically used in
the aircraft on display, providing visitors with historical background and
technical data on various planes and their systems, as they pass by.
Although I was technically associated with the Flight Surgeon's Office at Minot AFB as part of the base's 862nd Medical Group, my daily interactions with the 5th FIS' crews and operations quickly prompted me to become a life-long fan of this important air interception aircraft. As most former flying personal know, the relationship most military pilots have with "old Doc" is a prickly one at best, since the squadron's Flight Surgeon can bring a pilot's love affair with flying to a screeching halt in the span of a heartbeat. Despite this fact, the peculiar love/hate relationship maintained between flight crews and the Flight Surgeon usually resulted in the pilots treating "Doc" with a reasonable amount of begrudging respect and benign tolerance (mixed with a bit of not altogether misplaced fear). So it was that I became a sort of 5th FIS 'mascot'. Not really a member of that righteous brotherhood, but a certified "best friend" of the 5th's F-106s and their pilots.
Although I transferred to physiological
training at Davis-Monthan AFB soon after completing a year or two at Minot, my own personal love
affair with this magnificent delta-winged wonder simply became more palpable, if
anything. There were no Sixes at DMAFB of course, but after I left the
service in the late 60s the Convair F-106 Delta Dart remained at the very
top of my list of favorite military aircraft. Years later, when the Six was
finally retired from active service in the USAF and ANG (and consigned to
drone status to be gradually destroyed as targets by air-to-air missiles), I remained
concerned over the status of the Six survivors with an eye towards helping see
to it that a representative number of them ended up being preserved in air
museums for posterity. In the mid-80s, on a visit to the AMARC 'Boneyard', I was
amazed and gratified to find one of my old ex-5th FIS aircraft, "Balls
3" (SN 59-0003) assigned to the Pima Air & Space Museum that shares a
perimeter with 
AMARC.
"Balls 3" was initially fortunate to be designated as a drone
program 'parts resource' aircraft for the Pacer Six Tyndall weapons testing, but
was doubly fortunate in shortly thereafter being consigned to the Pima Museum on permanent
loan as a display aircraft. This lucky set of circumstances assured 59-0003's
survival intact and complete when the Pacer Six program finally ended in the
mid-90s. Most other QF-106s were not so lucky and over the course of a decade or
so, almost all of the converted target drones met spectacular ends as flying targets
over the coastal Florida swampland that Tyndall AFB occupies. In the final
count, a
handful of non-flying Sixes remained at Tyndall, a few aircraft never converted to
drone status remained at AMARC, and the small handful of Sixes still capable of flight
were flown back to AMARC where they went into indefinite storage. The non-flying
Tyndall Sixes (known as 'The Swamp Beasts' to the 82nd ATS people who ran
Pacer Six)
were sold (through DRMO) to David Tokoff and Associates of El Paso, Texas (owner
of GrecoAir and a number of other aviation ventures), but the remaining 7 or
so 'flyable' Sixes at AMARC included at least 4 to 5 former 5th FIS birds,
surprisingly enough. Two of the ex-5th FIS birds were selected for flight proof-of-concept
vehicles for the Project Eclipse program at Edwards (research employing towed,
reusable orbital vehicle technology); these two aircraft were serial numbers 59-0130 and
59-0010.
As regards the last Six mentioned, 59-0010, we at the McClellan Aviation Museum Foundation had been engaged in an effort to retrieve Six serial number 59-0010 from AMARC for inclusion into our own air museum collection, since despite the fact that for nearly 30 years McClellan AFB had been the primary ALC (Air Logistics Center) for the Convair F-106, we still had not obtained a specimen to put on display in our collection. Finally, after much negotiating between US Air Force Museum's people and our own, we at McClellan were granted priority reclamation rights to Convair F-106A SN 59-0010 (shown above, on permanent loan to our museum by USAFM which retains title to all retired military museum aircraft formerly the property of the US Air Force). We have recently arranged to transport the aircraft from AMARC to Sacramento this coming November, after all the necessary demil-work has been carried out (that process includes removing all radium contaminated items on board--mostly cockpit items, the internal missile bay launcher rails, and the remnants of the Hughes Aircraft developed MA-1 weapons system that the Six had been designed around) and completed.
As
for my own regard for Convair's 'Ultimate Interceptor' (this is what the
Six was known as, being the final, definitively improved version of the earlier
and original F-102 air defense interceptor), that process began many, many years
ago in 1950. I distinctly recall at the tender age of 4 being wheeled past the window of
the US Air Force's recruiter in San Francisco. Dad was pushing my perambulator
and I must have caught a glint of silver in the window, since I am told I
immediately became fascinated with the object. I later came to find out that
what I had seen was a shiny model of the Air Force's new P-80 Shooting Star
(America's first turbojet powered aircraft, the castle Museum example of which
is shown at right) and later determined that some day I was
going to fly that aircraft. Some 54 years later, I still have not made good on
that childhood vow, but it's on the top of my list of things to do before I shuffle off
the planet. Ironically, although I've flown to altitudes of 60,000 feet and
speeds of Mach 2 in other, much more modern aircraft, I still can't claim to
have flown in this by-now pedestrian 500 mph machine that inspired a life long love of military
aviation. I hope to rectify this next year, by taking a T-Bird flight out at
former Williams' AFB (now Williams Airport, near Flagstaff, AZ), where a private
operator provides T-Bird flights by special arrangement. However, my
strongest love is still Convair's sexy Six--known as "The 'Class' of the Century
Series" (F-100 through F-106 aircraft). With an operational weight of about
38,000 pounds and thrust rated at about 25 thousand pounds on full afterburner,
the Six is a spectacular performer whose operational specifications and
capabilities are still impressive--even some 48 years after the aircraft was first
flown!
Remarkably, of all the military aircraft the
United States has produced in the past half century, the Six remains the least
known and/or written about of them all. This, despite the fact that for 30
years, the Six was the primary air defense weapon employed against continental
airspace penetration by the Soviets. Today, although there are scores of books and references
written about the F-100, F-101, F-104, and F-105, there are only a small handful
of books that can be found on this amazing machine. Aside from Wayne Mutza's
excellent book on the Six's predecessor, the Convair F-102 (CONVAIR F-102
DELTA DAGGER, by Wayne Mutza, a Schiffer Military History Book, ISBN
0-7643-1062-3, 1999, Library of Congress number 99-67407, softcover), perhaps
the best single reference on the Six is to be found in
AIRtime 
Publishing's
book CENTURY SERIES: US Frontline Fighters of the Cold War. Very recently
released by AIRtime Publishing (2004), this book contains sections on the
Century Series fighters that
previously appeared in its magazine series over a period of several years. The
scant 60 pages of information and color photographs that comprise that part of
the book covering Convair's 'ultimate interceptor' remain the best single source of
historical background to be found today on this important aircraft of the 60s and 70s. The book is
edited by David Donald and its ISBN is 1-880588-68-4; cost is about $38-40
and the hard cover book contain a total of 288 splendidly illustrated pages of data
and photographs on all of the 5 Century Series jet aircraft.
I greatly enjoyed renewing my love affair with this 1500 mph delta-winged wonder on my Memorial Day visit to the Castle Air Museum and I couldn't help but muse for perhaps the 1000th time, what a sexy 'body' the Six has! I can testify to the truth of the old saying (from personal experience in the back seat of a Six B model), that flying Mach numbers in a Six beats anything else you can do with your clothes on! While some might think it a bit odd that members of the McClellan Aviation Museum Foundation board of directors would go out of their way to attend and support an event being held by our local 'competition', the way I see it, we are all equally dedicated to the preservation of aeronautical history by whatever means possible; the fact that Castle now has a former 5th Fighter Interceptor Squadron Six in its stable is simply a further incentive to enthusiastically support their events. Perhaps one of the most enjoyable aspects of this activity, aside from providing colorful photo ops for the visitors (and seeing the clearly visible thrill in the eyes of kids as they proudly posed for pictures with "a real pilot", shill though I was), was having a chance to chat with the dedicated people who made the Castle Six acquisition take shape and come together. Such great individuals as Castle's Joe Pruzzo and Ralph Robledo, along with all the alumni of the former 456th FIS (that formerly operated Sixes at castle) are a great credit to the Castle Aviation Museum; they certainly have my silent but sincere expression of thanks that they were able to successfully rescue this surviving specimen of my all-time favorite military jet interceptor and make it available to the aviation history minded public of middle California.
[A side note: the Collings Foundation's B-17
and B-24 flying tour visited Sacramento a week ago, landing at our own McClellan
AFB facility where they provided flights for interested persons who were willing
to purchase tickets at about $300-$400 per flight. Although this may seem like a
huge amount of money to spend 40 minutes in the air, one needs to consider the
fact that these two aircraft are both now over 60 years old and are extremely
rare survivors out of the thousands and thousands of these World War II bombers
that formerly flew over Europe in the early 40s. The Foundation's B-24J
Liberator is one of only two that still fly in the USA (a non-flying
Liberator may be seen in the Castle Air Museum 
collection),
among 13,000 produced! The Collings B-17G model Flying Fortress is another
rare beast, although there are a few more of these still flying today than Liberators. Consider that a three hundred
dollar per head ticket goes a scant
way towards defraying the cost of a single engine overhaul on these planes (it
costs $50,000 per engine overhaul and there is no guarantee) and each of these 4 engine planes
goes through a number of such overhauls each year. Consider further that a 30
minute joyride in a private jet powered T-33 warbird costs an average of about
$750 per flight, and a backseat ride in a privately owned Lockheed F-104D
Starfighter can cost as much as $5000 per 40 minute flight! Thanks to the
Collings Foundation, these historic aircraft are kept flying so as to advance
the cause of aviation history and perpetuate remembrance of the important role they played
in defeating the Axis powers in the Second World War. A picture of
their recent visit is shown here, at right.]
Finally, as Memorial Day 2004 weekend draws to a
close, and in writing this just before it is time to retire the nation's flag
before dusk, I feel it is important to observe that despite all the empty words that daily pour
out of empty heads in the continuing inane arguments over what has become
America's shameful quagmire in Iraq, it is altogether worthwhile to reflect upon
the fact that the Bush administration has erred tragically (in many
ways) in starting a conflict that the nation didn't need ,nor want. It is
equally important now to not perpetuate that wasteful and needless mess by
further supporting it. That said, in honor of the day we nevertheless need to silentlyremember those who, in having been essentially ordered to their deaths for the sake
of American corporate oil & international business interests, lost their young lives
untimely in the months since Bush declared "Mission Completed". Regrettably, patriotism, that flaming brand of impassioned
ejaculative rhetoric we are so familiar with, has in America today become an addictive drug
that all too often clouds the senses and prevents the exercise of rational,
wise, and reflective awareness. At present, as the social chaos and religious turmoil
in Iraq daily threatens to overwhelm any rational attempts to install a truly democratic
governmental process in the vacuum following the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime, 
we
most need to clearly understand that the best way to support our troops in this
unfortunate war is to get them safely back home where they belong, away from
that foreign nation where they had no legitimate reason to be sent
in the first place. The Iraq war was, is, and continues to be a terrible,
needless, and deceitful blunder initiated by a President whose utter
incompetence in both domestic and foreign policy is unsurpassed by any American
Chief Executive in recent memory. It is frightening to think that George W. Bush,
with his gross lack of understanding of other peoples and nations, has been so successful in hoodwinking the entire nation into
going along with his misadventure; of course it is perhaps even more alarming to find that
the grief-stricken families of those who have been lost in Iraq nevertheless remain supportive of the Bush
Administration's egregious conduct in office. One might be tempted to regard this
as a
slamming indictment against the intelligence, credibility, and reflective
awareness of the masses of American people who remain blind-sided by Bush's
disastrous actions and catastrophic undertakings, in his mismanaged 'war on terrorism',
but regardless of these sorry facts we must all reserve a few quiet moments to
reflect upon the fate of those young men who served in the uniform of our nation
and gave their lives for what they believed
in...right OR wrong...
I'll end my Memorial Day weekend thoughts with a disturbing but noteworthy quote attributed to Danish composer Carl Nielsen in 1922, shortly after he premiered his startling 5th Symphony: "Patriotism has become a spiritual syphilis that devours the brains and grins out through empty eye sockets with moronic hate!” Loving one's country shouldn't have to be characterised in that manner, of course, but the true patriot has as much responsibility to stand up and question the motivations and actions of our leaders as he has to take up arms to support and defend the nation of his birth. Would that more of our young soldiers had understood that stark fact before they made their ultimate sacrifice for BushCo's oil enterprises!
(With profound respect for the nation's war dead, past AND present, on Memorial Day, 2004......DocBoink)
Castle Aviation Museum website: http://www.elite.net/castle-air/
McClellan Aviation Museum website: http://www.mcclellanaviationmuseum.org
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